TRUTH IN RELIGION; 

OK, 

HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 



by y 

REV. J. B. GROSS, 

AUTHOR OF " THE HEATHEN RELIGION IN ITS POPULAR AND SYMBOLICAL DEVELOP- 
MENT ;" OF " THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, AS SET FORTH IN THE BOOK 
OF CONCORD, CRITICALLY EXAMINED AND ITS FALLACY DEMONSTRATED;" 
OF "THE TEACHINGS OF PROVIDENCE, OR NEW LESSONS ON OLD SUB- 
JECTS ;" OF " THE PARSON ON DANCING AS IT IS TAUGHT IN THE 
BIBLE, AND WAS PRACTICED AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS 
AND ROMANS;" OF "THOUGHTS FOR THE FIRESIDE AND 
THE SCHOOL," OF "THOUGHTS FOR THE FIRESIDE AND 
THE SCHOOL, SECOND SERIES;" OF " OLD FAITH 
AND NEW THOUGHTS," &C, &C. 




" What conscience dictates to be done, 
Or warns me not to do, 
This, teach me more than hell to shun, 
That, more than heav'n pursue. w — Pope. 

" He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside." — Cowper. 



Q.Q.Q& 

PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 
1881. 






Copyright, 1881, by Rev. J. B. Gross. 



DEDICATION. 



'Not to the Deceitful Hypocrite, who wilily feigns to be what 
he is not ; not to the Narrow-Minded Bigot, who obstinately 
refuses a Purer Faith ; not to the Contemptible Wretch, who 
meanly crouches to Man, but never bends the Knee to his 
Maker, but to the Honest Men and Women, who : diligently 
seeking the Truth, are not ashamed or too cowardly, when 
they have found it, fearlessly to avow and disseminate it, 
and whose Faith and Worship are, therefore, to be deemed 
Sincere, this Little Volume — which is ever Sacred and, I 
doubt not, will be ever Dear to them, is respectfully inscribed 
by their Devoted Friend — 

THE AUTHOK. 



PREFACE. 



The following pages are solely designed to explain 
and justify the reprobations and condemnations ex- 
pressed occasionally in the author's former Works, 
in reference to the false beliefs and disingenuous 
conduct of a very numerous, and, alas, still widely 
dominant class of people among the so-called ortho- 
dox Christians. 

My mission in this world, is God-appointed : it is, 
therefore, inviolably to be kept sacred, and consists 
simply in doing my duty, which implies nothing less 
than ever to seek and cherish Truth ; never — espe- 
cially not in matters appertaining to religion, to con- 
nive at error or tolerate falsehood with impunity ! 

In the pursuit of these vital and, indeed, para- 
mount ends — the chief glory of man, and the certain 
approval of a holy God, it is not for me, or any one 
else, timidly to weigh or cowardly to shirk, the 
consequences of the promulgation of opinions more 
or less antagonistic to the generally received and 
vulgarly believed articles of faith : Truth is mighty 
and must prevail ! Besides, God — the omnipotent, 
reigns, and, hence, any partial evils that may result 
from their dissemination, must finally inevitably 
eventuate in a radical, abiding, and universal creed- 

1* 5 



6 PREFACE. 

reformation, and consequently in the adoption and 
propagation of pristine Gospel-principles; that is, 
reasonable, elevating, sanctifying, common-sense re- 
ligious beliefs. 

My position — both as a man and an author, being 
thus plainly defined and, therefore, unequivocally 
placed in its proper light, I shall implicitly commit 
the issue to the just providence of an all-wise and 
beneficent Deity. If, nevertheless, people will still 
continue to trifle with their destiny and obstinately 
persist in their shameful and glaring disregard of a 
sincere and genuinely devout conscientiousness in 
their most serious and solemn relations with the Al- 
mighty, and in spite of all the well-meant and re- 
peated efforts that may be put forth by the friends 
of a purer faith and a worthier worship, in their be- 
hoof: thus earnestly admonishing them of their duty, 
or boldly reminding them of their shameful delin- 
quency toward God and their own consciences, per- 
severe in preferring darkness to light, and fallacies 
to truth, impiously warring against Heaven and 
their own happiness — like the rebellious and wicked 
Titans of classic fame, let them : their disobedience ; 
their dishonesty; their faithlessness, will, sooner or 
later, overwhelm them with blank dismay in the 
lively realization of a profound sense of guilt and 
unworthiness, when each — in the language of Shake- 
speare, might appropriately exclaim : 

u My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain !' 7 

Wilkes-Barre, Pa., May 10, 1881. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Dedication 3 

Preface 5 

CHAPTEE I. 
Man — a Eational Being 11 

CHAPTER II. 
Conscientiousness 16 

CHAPTEE III. 

Eeligious Creeds should be Spontaneous, or the Eesult of 
Personal Eeflection 20 

PARAGRAPH I. 
Catechumens 22 

PARAGRAPH II. 
The Eeligious Faith of Christian Adults 25 

PARAGRAPH III. 
The Faith of Clergymen 29 

CHAPTEE IY. 
Jesus — Our Ensample 34 

7 



8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE V. 

PAGE 

Faith must be a Personal Acquisition 42 

PARAGRAPH I. 
Faith is not a Chattel and cannot be bequeathed to us by 
our Parents 43 

PARAGRAPH II. 

The Faith of Our Ancestors should not influence us in 
the Choice of Our Religion 46 

PARAGRAPH III. 
Ecclesiastical Bodies must not be allowed to dictate or 
control our Faith 51 

PARAGRAPH IV. 
Orthodox Believers, who constitute a Yast Majority in 
the Christian Church, must not rule in Matters of 
Faith ; for Reason only, not Numbers, can decide in 
such Case 54 

CHAPTER VI. 

Martyrs to Religious Convictions, have left us an Ex- 
ample, Worthy of our Highest Regard 59 

CHAPTER VII. 

The justice and goodness of God exemplify True Belief.. 66 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Apostle St. Thomas, the Bereans, King Agrippa, 
and Pontius Pilate, or the Way how True Religious 
Conviction should be attained 77 

PARAGRAPH I. 
The Apostle St. Thomas , 77 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 9 



PARAGRAPH II. 

PAGE 

The Bereans 79 

PARAGRAPH III. 
King Agrippa 82 

PARAGRAPH IY. 
Pontius Pilate 87 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Innocence of Little Children 91 

CHAPTER X. 

Religion — a Constituent, or Element of the Human Con- 
stitution 99 

CHAPTER XL 

True Faith in its Widest Practical Significance 107 

CHAPTER XII. 

God's Character vindicated against Inconsistency, and a 
False Faith set right 114 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Polygamy considered as a Mormon-Institution, or Relig- 
ion retrograding 122 



APPENDIX. 

A Singular Plant-Metamorphosis, or Evolution Seem- 
ingly Verified 131 



TRUTH IN RELIGION; 

OR, 

Honesty in our Faith and Worship. 



CHAPTEE I. 

Man — a Kational Being. 

Man, beside his many other admirable endow- 
ments, possesses the rare and exalted faculty of 
reason, and, hence, is expected always to deport 
himself reasonably, or — in other words, resolutely 
to assert the superior rank and dignity which thus 
pre-eminently distinguish him above all other 
classes of animated nature, by never losing sight 
of this important fact, or proving unfaithful to 
the precious and incomparable trust. These po- 
sitions, I hold, are self-evident, and, therefore, 
deserve the serious attention of all who make 
any pretensions to a religious life. 

Such being clearly the case, man should never 
by ignoring reason, place himself more or less 
upon a level with the brute, and, hence, commit a 

11 



12 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

heinous sin, which, by-the-by, the brute cannot 
do, for the simple reason that it is not, like he, a 
moral agent. On the contrary, he should ever 
carefully consult his reason in all that he does, 
that he may do it reasonably and act emphati- 
cally as a man : a human being ; that is, in con- 
formity both with his transcendent endowment 
and, consequently, with the clear and decided 
will of God : woe to him that slights " the ways 
of God to man" ! How is it possible in view 
of the foregoing facts, for man to answer to God 
for his conduct after having been so eminently 
gifted and blessed with the glorious faculty of 
reason, if he lives — as, alas, he often does, as if he 
was devoid of it, or is unfaithful, yes, frequently 
most treacherous, in the use of it ? He is — in 
such sinister case, according to Jesus, a " wicked 
and slothful servant," who " hides" this greatest 
of his talents in the earth, and, what is worse still, 
he cannot — being a free-agent, either justify or 
extenuate his wickedness. "Whence it necessarily 
follows that God, whose inestimable gift he basely 
misspends or criminally lets decay, shall, sooner 
or later, call him to a severe account for his 
shameful infidelity as well as most flagrant in- 
gratitude, in thus deliberately or thoughtlessly 
violating this sacred, God-given heritage, and, 
therefore, most grossly desecrating and insulting 
the ever adorable divinity within him ! 

Man — I add, is especially to be reasonable and 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 13 

honest, or — in other words, true, to his rational na- 
ture in his religious convictions, and — of course, 
in building up and propagating his dogmatic be- 
lief. Under this head, a very numerous part of 
mankind are conspicuously and largely at fault, 
and reason is consequently habitually and egre- 
giously abused or lamentably neglected ; nay 
often, alas, decried by those who claim alone to 
be the true saints and undoubted orthodox wor- 
shipers in the spiritual household of God, as if it 
was an unclean or foul thing, and as if God's 
choicest blessing to man could not participate in 
the formation of our creeds : creeds which are 
a curse and a disgrace unless they are reasonable, 
without — it seems, contaminating them, and ren- 
dering them obnoxious in the sight of God, its 
beneficent author ! Such contracted and despi- 
cable views readily account for the many absurd 
and ridiculous : often utterly false and ridiculous 
dogmas in church-creeds, and proclaim aloud the 
guilt and folly and dishonesty of those odious 
apostates from the divine reason in man, arro- 
gantly calling themselves "the believers." What 
a perversion of terms in the creed-nomenclature 
of the Church ! 

The believers, thus indicated, are really the 
unbelievers and largely deserve the appellation 
infidels: a term often slanderously applied to 
those who seek to render their creed plausible 

and useful by a resort to reason, the only legiti- 

2 



14 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

mate test of an admissible faith. For they treat 
lightly, or positively and utterly condemn the 
God-ordained use of reason as the unequivocally 
satisfactory and efficient means in determining 
our religious beliefs. Thus virtually gainsaying 
their Maker, and setting up a false and most 
dangerous method of belief. A strange kind of 
faith, forsooth, that has not reason for its basis, 
and that does, therefore, rest upon reason-weighed 
evidence ! Can it be possible that man — assuming 
to be born again of the spirit of God, should be 
so blindly and obstinately self-willed as delibe- 
rately to put himself beyond the pale of a reason- 
able and, hence, only true and acceptable mode 
of expressing the natural and uncorrupted in- 
stincts of the soul ! I solemnly entreat you, fel- 
low-citizens, no longer to trifle with the laws and 
ways of the Almighty, or further to persist in 
closing your eyes to your souls' true interest! 
Away, away, with merely derived or inherited 
beliefs ! God speaks, hear him ! Yea, says 
conscience, he speaks ! 

In the third chapter and the fifteenth verse of 
the First Epistle of St. Peter, we find a most op- 
portune and admirable lesson on this eminently 
weighty subject, in the following cogent and ap- 
propriate words: "Sanctify the Lord God in 
your hearts, and be ready always to give an an- 
swer to every man that asketh you a reason of 
the hope that is in you," &c. 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. J 5 

This emphatic and decisive apostolic teaching 
— fully corroborating the doctrine inculcated in 
this chapter, should, it seems, suffice to cause 
even incredulous believers to pause and reflect. 
Be reasonable then ; be honest; be truthful; al- 
ways ask for a reason before you believe ; before 
you condemn the reasonable ; the God-obeying, 
or with all your boasting of possessing the saving 
faith, and of being the elect of God, your end will 
be surely disastrous ; for your fancied superior 
orthodoxy, and modest claim of exclusive child- 
ship with God, must finally — if persisted in, 
prove delusive, and end in shame and sorrow; 
nay, being the height of unfaithfulness, may, 
and, I have no doubt, will — sooner or later, be 
met with the dread denunciation : " Depart from 
me, ye that work iniquity !" 



16 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 



CHAPTEE II. 

Conscientiousness. 

Our sense, or judgment of what is right or 
wrong, proper for us to do or let undone is — in 
the usual acceptation, termed conscience. Every 
person of sound mind and of mature years ; 
living in social relations no longer partaking of 
the extreme savage type of mankind, has a con- 
science — in most cases, fully adequate to discern 
his duty; to act properly; and, above all, to 
know and appreciate truth. He is thus, conse- 
quently, capacitated to believe reasonably, or — in 
other w^ords, not to believe at all unless he has a 
reason or sufficient cause for so doing, and is, 
therefore, able to justify and defend his faith on 
principles of truth and honesty, when — in the 
familiar language of orthodox creeds, it is, in- 
deed, a saving faith, but — as the result of reflec- 
tion and evidence, simply a logical faith, which is 
quite good enough for ordinary purposes. 

What then are we to think of the many 
thousands and millions of believers, who enjoy 
the distinguished privileges of a high state of 
civilization, and have, consequently, every op- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 17 

portunity of thoroughly informing themselves of 
what it behooves them to think and to do in 
their solemn devotional relations to the Deity, or 
in their religious persuasions and observances as 
believers; as worshipers; as creed- founders, etc., 
who never think of sifting their faith, or the evi- 
dence on which it rests ; of inquiring, more or 
less closely and anxiously, into its meaning and 
ethic bearing ; into its fitness or truthfulness in 
its conceptions of God; his laws; and his ways; 
and especially into its adaptability to the spirit- 
ual state and wants as well as the healthful and 
strictly normal development of the soul. 

These kinds of people actually seem to think 
that any thing will do or is good enough in their 
creed-relations to God; that if their countenance 
is only seemingly serious or of pious aspect, and 
their profession of faith sufficiently zealous and 
orthodox, it matters little about their real con- 
victions or sentiments — not enough, at any rate, 
to damage their salvation for the future world; 
to lay them open to the charge of heresy; or — in 
other words, to mar their saintly prestige among 
the faithful! Is not such conduct — unfeeling as 
it is iniquitous, shamefully trifling with the best 
and most holy interests of the soul ? Is it not a 
flagrant insult to the God that made us ? In all 
the sacrificial modes of worship, practiced among 
the peoples of antiquity, only the best, the fair- 
est, the most precious, was thought worthy to be 

2* 



18 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

offered to the Deity ! Nothing — I repeat, was too 
good ; nothing too costly, for his exalted service, 
and as an expression of heart-felt and devout 
gratitude towards him for his manifold bounties 
and great mercies ! And with this instructive 
and rebuking precedent staring us full in the 
face, will any persons, claiming to be Christians, 
still dare to come into the holy presence of God 
with a faith that is only a sham, and little else, 
alas, but a pitiable or contemptible superstition : 
in short, a mere pretense, and often no better 
than — I grieve to say it, an unmitigated fraud ! 

Bather, much rather, would I have no faith 
than a faith that violates the sacred principles of 
conscience : a bastard faith, and, besides, hug the 
monster — as, alas, many evidently do, closely 
and tenderly to my misguided and infatuated 
soul, falsely deeming it — according to received 
opinion, the one thing needful : the very Alpha 
and Omega of a soul-saving orthodoxy, and — of 
course, the clearly Heaven-indorsed and only all- 
sufficient condition to the undoubted attainment 
of eternal life ! Such a faith — neither born nor 
nursed of the good mother conscience, is abso- 
lutely poison to the normal integrity of the soul, 
and, in fact, poison to all the fountains of a healthy 
and a rigidly upright and pious life. Hence too a 
religion or worship founded on such faith ; that 
is, founded not in truth; wdiich is, therefore, 
devoid of strict honesty, breeds only evil ; for 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 19 

it represses every noble and generous sentiment 
of the soul, by harboring false principles and 
acting from base motives, thus virtually causing 
apostasy from God ; from duty ; from the essen- 
tial requisite to a God-appointed destiny — the 
untiring nurture and observance of conscien- 
tiousness, truth and honesty, in all our devo- 
tional intercourse with the Almighty. 

The following pithy stanza from Crabbe, will 
appropriately conclude this essay : 

11 Oh conscience ! conscience ! man's faithful friend, 
Him. canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend ; 
But if he will thy friendly checks forego, 
Thou art, oh, woe for me ! his deadliest foe I" 



20 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 



CHAPTER III. 

Religious Creeds should be Spontaneous, or the Result of 
Personal Reflection. 

PRELIMINARY, OR SAVING FAITH. 

The ideas which are generally annexed by or- 
thodox believers, to the definition of saving faith, 
as will appear from Buck's " Theological Dic- 
tionary," are, that "it is that principle wrought 
in the heart by the Divine Spirit, whereby we are 
persuaded that Christ is the Messiah, and possess 
such a desire and expectation of the blessings he 
has promised in his Gospel, as engages the mind 
to fix its dependence on him, and subject itself 
to him in all the ways of holy obedience, and re- 
lying solely on his grace for everlasting life." 

From the foregoing exposition of saving faith, 
in its ultra-orthodox import, it will be perceived 
that faith is solely, and in a supernatural sense, 
the gift of Divine grace, and, hence, a miraculous 
endowment, while man — in his relation to it, is 
simply in an inert or passive state ; a mere ma- 
chine, responsive only to external agency ! Or- 
thodoxy is certainly remarkable for its many 
crass and extravagant opinions. Opinions, for 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 21 

example, like those wliieli form the theme of the 
present reflections, and which — if they were true, 
would make man's salvation absolutely depend- 
ent on a direct and decisive Divine agency, thus — 
the thought is extremely shocking, making God 
responsible for at least all the persisting unbelief 
and consequent damnation of the unredeemed 
within the pale of the Christian Church. 

This view of true faith, known emphatically as 
saving faith, is essentially Calvinistic, and sub- 
stantially no less than falsely teaches the dogma 
of predestination, while — of course, man's free- 
agency is thrust into the background, or reduced 
to a mere nominal factor. The origin of this pre- 
posterous creed, I will only further add, is the 
grotesque assumption of the total depravity of 
mankind through the imputation of Adam's sin! 
When, 0, when ! will creed-makers put a little 
common sense in their articles of faith ? Before 
they represent the whole human race as damned 
on account of Adam's sin, they should — it seems 
to me, first be sure that such a person as Adam 
has really existed, and next look a little into the 
ancient records of geology, where they shall 
find that man existed myriad ages prior to the 
hypothetical ancestor of the human family, and 
that, consequently, Adam's «sin, involving all 
men in guilt and death, is simply a ridiculous 
myth ! 



22 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

PARAGRAPH I. 

Catechumens. 

Catechumens are generally j^oung persons, 
who pass through a course of catechetical in- 
struction preparatory to the rite of confirmation. 
Having been brought up in the routine of ritual 
services of one of the many sects, into which the 
Christian Church is divided, and thus grown 
familiar with its creed and ceremonies, it is easy 
to persuade them to do as others have done, and, 
accordingly, at an age deemed proper for a par- 
ticipation in such a solemnity, they offer them- 
selves as candidates for church-membership. The 
subjects, which constitute the instruction which 
they receive, consist in the usual standard ortho- 
dox dogmas ; as, that Adam and Eve were the 
first people ; that they were primarily perfect, 
holy, and immortal ; that sinning, they became 
mortal, and transmitted the deleterious conse- 
quences of their fall, to their innocent posterity, 
and it thence also became mortal : hence the 
need of a Savior, possessing both a human and 
divine nature in one person, to redeem a sinful 
and perishing world by his passion and death ; 
that saving faith is emphatically a supernatural 
gift ; that baptism is necessary to salvation ; that 
the Lord's Sapper has expiatory efficacy ;* that 



* The belief in the expiatory efficacy of the Lord's Supper, 
is — at present, perhaps rather tacitly implied than openly 
avowed in the orthodox creeds. 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 23 

there is an endless reward awaiting the saved in 
heaven, and an endless punishment prepared for 
the lost in hell, &c. 

Now all these tenets — I am constrained to 
say — are either sadly faulty or radically false! 
This is — I am aware, a bold assertion, but you 
will please bear in mind, reader, that I make it 
my especial business in these pages, to tell you 
the truth at once plainly and unreservedly, with- 
out, however, having the least desire unnecessa- 
rily to wound even in the smallest degree, the 
feelings of any sincere, though erroneous believer 
in Christ. Nevertheless, truth — thrice blessed of 
God, must have free course, and the eyes of the 
blind, together with the ears of the deaf, cannot 
be opened too soon, nor can we hasten too much 
to restore the halting to a just equilibrium : man 
needs truth as his greatest ornament and bless- 
ing, and his all-wise and omnipotent Maker per- 
emptorily everywhere and always demands it ! 

It is essentially upon such a creed-basis like 
the preceding, that the catechumen is admitted 
to confirmation and church-membership. He 
readily indorses every article of the inculcated 
creed in good faith, being neither able to scruti- 
nize it more closely nor feeling uneasy by any 
misgivings about the truthfulness and cogency of 
the various parts, composing this widely accred- 
ited and eminently orthodox theory of redemp- 
tion. He takes everything — as a matter of course, 



24 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

for granted; he yields assent implicitly; and — 
no doubt, is fully persuaded that he does a great 
and praiseworthy thing in the name of the Lord! 
Alas, poor youth, doomed thus to orthodox the- 
ological training ! for instead of devoting him- 
self to the service of God on principles of a purely 
personal conviction, he is entirely governed by 
hearsay ; by example ; by authority. His faith 
is second-rate, nothing more, and he embraces it 
without the least intelligible appreciation either of 
its worth or its consistency. Under all these ad- 
verse and painful circumstances, he nevertheless 
never flags or hesitates in his purpose, but sol- 
emnly promises, or, perhaps, I should say, assev- 
erates ; that is, swears, or affirms, that by the 
grace of God, he will ever continue in the profes- 
sion of the creed thus taught him, and thus pub- 
licly and advisedly assumed under devout invo- 
cations of the Divine blessings and the solemn 
imposition of hands ! Young people — it is clear, 
are not to be blamed for the part which they are 
induced to take in this important act of their 
lives, but — on the contrary, their parents ; their 
pastors ; their elders of the faith generally, are 
gravely reprehensible for making the creed of 
catechumens — either impliedly or explicitly, un- 
alterable, and their church-membership permanent. 
Thus hindering freedom of research, and violating 
an inalienable human ridht. Let vouths be dili- 
gently taught the way in which it may be thought 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 25 

proper that they should go, but forbear — I be- 
seech you by all that is most holy in human des- 
tiny, to meddle with the sacred rights of their 
consciences: they exclusively concern themselves 
and their God ! 

PARAGRAPH II. 

The Religious Faith of Christian Adults. 

I am happy to know that there are honorable 
exceptions now and then, but — as a rule, adult 
Christians generally are seldom much better pro- 
vided with a reason or rational motive for their 
faith and religious observances than the unfortu- 
nate catechumens, the defective and unsatisfac- 
tory character of whose creed and implied con- 
ventional future mode of divine service, was 
briefly described and illustrated in the previous 
paragraph. They have been brought up in the 
faith and worship of their ancestors, or, perhaps, 
in the more recent tenets of their sect, and they 
believe as they have been taught, thus adopting 
as undoubted Divine teachings, certain formulas 
of belief and statedly observing the prescribed 
outward orthodox expressions of the instinctive 
and potent religious sentiment. Thus walking 
in a trammeled routine of ceremonies, and a hoary 
or, at least, an instilled creed-avowal, without 
nicely inquiring whether either is reasonable or 
profitable; whether their ecclesiastical relations 
might not be materially improved ; whether their 

3 



26 TRUTH IN RELIGION ; OR, 

ostensibly religious lives are really acceptable to 
God, and consequently promotive of true happi- 
ness, or whether — on the contrary, their religious 
professions are not decidedly futile ; their wor- 
ship a senseless formality ; and their hope vain. 
Alas, they are usually unconsciously swept along 
on the tidal wave of orthodoxy without rudder 
or compass, and, what is greatly worse still, with- 
out asking themselves the all-important ques- 
tions, Whither are we going, and what will become 
of us ! 

Of what possible use — to pursue this subject a 
little further, can religion be unless it is deeply 
heart-felt ? Nevertheless, it being simply heart- 
felt, though it is going a long way in the right 
direction to make it a genuine acquisition and an 
exceeding blessing, it is, by no means, sufficient 
to enable the worshiper to discharge his entire 
duty toward God and his conscience. For re- 
ligion — worthy of the hallowed name, must — 
above all, be reasonable, or noted for its com- 
mon-sense traits of character, to be adequately 
available and deserving of the Divine approval, 
as well as be sincere, and at once soul-absorbing 
and exalting. Religion — it deserves to be stated, 
is a serious as well as a happy and a decidedly 
genial state of mind, and should — therefore, 
owing to its superior importance as an essential 
element in our destiny, occupy the first and highest 
place in our thoughts and affections. It should, 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 27 

in brief, constitute a subject of profound study 
among all who would honor their Maker, and 
develop their best energies as well as holiest emo- 
tions. It is, hence, very evident that religion — 
" pure and undefiled religion," as the Apostle 
calls it, must have reason for its basis ; truth for 
its guide ; honesty for its test; and the soul and 
life-amelioration of man for its object: the re- 
ligious sentiment has been implanted in the hu- 
man soul more, far more, for man's than for 
God's sake. In short, though the vulgar re- 
ligion of unthinking, sensuous mankind may do 
well enough to amuse its credulous professors for 
want of something better to satisfy their crude, 
puerile cravings, it is only the faith and worship 
whose roots go down deeply into the pure well 
of truth, and which alone wear jointly the re- 
splendent, jeweled crown, which only spontaneity 
of thought and impartial personal reflection can 
give, that has any worth, or beauty, or perma- 
nence, or the Divine sanction and blessing. 

If — I further remark, any proposition in human 
life, is clearly self-evident, I think it is that man 
desires to be happy : this, I hold, is a perfectly 
natural desire, and all men should, therefore, 
strive assiduously to attain the end after which it 
aims in ways at once the most proper and feasi- 
ble : in fact, the only legitimate ways provided 
for its attainment. A false religion, which may 
be a senseless or merely formal religion, could 



28 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

assuredly never realize this transcendent good. 
What then can ? A true, honest, rational re- 
ligion ! A religion that has sloughed off the 
thread-hare and polluted habiliments of old su- 
perstition ; that has carefully and devoutly lis- 
tened to the sacred voice of God in nature and 
in conscience, and — piously as well as duti- 
fully, brought its principles and expressions in 
conformity with its dictates; that never acknowl- 
edges the obligation of a creed till it has sub- 
jected it to a scrupulous and conscientious in- 
vestigation ; that will rather, a thousand times 
rather, be decried as heterodox and damnable, 
than connive at human inventions set up in the 
place of the honest monitions of the soul, and 
the irrefragable teachings of Divine providence ; 
and, finally, that will not say it believes when it 
does not believe, or pretend to be orthodox when 
it is only truthful, and seeks but to do the will of 
God and faithfully to discharge its duty. Such 
a religion, reader, is God-born and will live ; will 
obtain the sanction of all undoubtedly and im- 
partially good men ; for it is grounded and thrives 
in the God-appointed and God-blessed everlasting 
order of things ! 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 29 

PARAGRAPH III. 

The Faith of Clergymen. 

Far be it from me to prefer a charge of con- 
demnation against the so-called orthodox clergy 
indiscriminately: who alone are here alluded to; 
for there are men among them who — though in 
their professional capacity, they are committed 
to the propagation of sadly erroneous and often 
exceedingly pernicious dogmas, mean well and 
are perfectly sincere. They simply and implicitly 
wear the shackles which prejudice and a perverse 
education have fastened on them ; but with these 
exceptions, the members in connection with ec- 
clesiastical bodies — famous for modestly claim- 
ing alone to possess a true and saving faith, and 
habitually decrying and slandering those whose 
creed differs from their own, as heretics and rep- 
robates, are largely and notoriously guilty both 
of a crass and most disgraceful narrow-minded- 
ness and bigotry as well as of cant and hypocrisy: 
vices which cannot fail to attach an indelible stain 
to their memory. Ay, " By their fruits/' says 
Jesus, "ye shall know them." 

Their presumptuous traits of character already 
show themselves at the ordination-service of can- 
didates for the ministry, in demanding of them 
before consecration a solemn promise rigidly to 
teach and ever faithfully to adhere to the creed 
of the Church, within whose pale it is designed 

3* 



30 TRUTH IN RELIGION ; OR, 

that they shall labor in the future, and win or 
watch over souls for heaven. Such a nefarious 
act evidently implies a virtual renunciation of 
the inalienable rights of conscience, and is, there- 
fore, a monstrous crime, wickedly required and 
unwittingly consented to by the parties interested 
in this remarkable scene. As a necessary conse- 
quence, the ordinandi future growth in religious 
knowledge, is thus forestalled, while his soul is 
stunted and debauched for the sake of upholding 
and perpetuating a ridiculous, effete, and arro- 
gant orthodoxy. To think that there are Christian 
bodies of men who — under pretense of doing God 
a service, thus violate the inmost sanctuary of the 
soul, and coolly rob it of its divine birth-right, is 
enough to make one tremble for the issue of 
human destiny !* 

Suppose now that in process of time, a mem- 



* Froude, in "A Plea for the .Free Discussion of Theolog- 
ical Difficulties,''' says — speaking of creed-subscription, u The 
man who, in taking orders, signs the Articles and accepts the 
Prayer-hook, does not merely undertake to use the services in 
the one, and abstain from contradicting to his congregation 
the doctrines contained in the other ; but he is held to promise 
what no honest man, without presumption, can undertake to 
promise — that he will continue to think to the end of his life 
as he thinks when he makes his engagement." I will only 
add to these weighty words of the distinguished English 
writer, that young men at their ordination, seldom realize 
the extent of the mischief that orthodoxy inflicts upon their 
inexperienced and unsuspicious souls ! 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 31 

ber of such a despotic association begins to have 
some doubts about the soundness of this or that 
article of the creed, which he has virtually sworn 
always to believe or fixedly to abide by, and he, 
hence, gradually shows signs of infidelity — as 
conceited bigots mildly designate them, what will 
be the consequence if he does not speedily retract, 
and again pursue his path in the beaten, old, and 
miry rut of orthodoxy? I answer, To reclaim 
his Satan-insnared soul, the thunders of an " An- 
athema Maranatha," will be most affectionately 
and lovingly hurled against his devoted head. 

What further result will follow in this tragedy? 
If the apostate is a coward, he will slink again 
among the owls and the bats of a tw r ilight Chris- 
tianity, live self-condemned in the future, and die 
unregretted and unwept. If, on the contrary, he 
is a true man : whose faith — figuratively speak- 
ing, " can remove mountains/' and that has, 
therefore, the sense and the courage to say with 
the apostle Peter, " We ought to obey God rather 
than men," he will defy these odious enemies of 
religious liberty, peremptorily renounce his ex- 
isting ecclesiastical relations, and seek a more 
genial and a more hopeful position in the com- 
munity : in the name of God, I pronounce this 
man blessed ! 

What a striking difference is here manifested 
in the faith of the two men ! In the one case, it 
is weak, vacillating ; in the other, strong, un- 



32 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

yielding. In the former, it is not honest, and 
cannot, therefore, be true; in the latter, it is 
honest and — there can be hardly the shadow of a 
doubt, but that it is true. Base, worldly consid- 
erations make the unfaithful minister a traitor to 
his conscience ; a profound sense of duty exalts 
the morally-loyal worshiper to the rank of a child 
of God ! 

Such marked fearlessness of consequences in 
the face of difficulties, such unflinching deter- 
mination to defend the rights of conscience at 
all hazards, as has been just described, is rare: 
indeed, exceptional, and multitudes of ministers 
will rather succumb to the disquietude and up- 
braidings of an abused and bleeding conscience, 
than boldly brave public opinion, or run the risk 
of diminishing the chances of a comfortable liv- 
ing. They, hence, signally fail to carry out the 
Apostle's exhortation, " To quit themselves like 
men and be strong." But though they are thus 
lamentably weak, they are, by no means, so weak 
as not to be honest. Oh, no ! Their infidelity to 
truth, is, therefore, a crime of a very deep dye, 
and eminently ruinous to the soul, for it wars 
against its holiest instincts. Oh, ye who are thus, 
not without the guilt of a grave misdemeanor, 
" weak in the faith," let me beseech you to cease 
any longer: ere it shall be too late to amend your 
ways, to barter your peace of mind, and hope of 
heaven for a pitiable " mess of pottage !" 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 33 

But, finally, what judgment must we pass upon 
the faith, the religion, or the worship, of the sjmocl, 
the council, the conference, the presbytery, the 
convocation, &c, that can thus basely presume 
to trifle with; thus to abuse; thus to trammel 
and intellectually murder her more reflecting, 
more scrupulous members? It is — I conceive, in 
theory substantially the same as that of the " Holy 
Office," and they who profess it, are essentially 
inquisitors, lacking only — in this " land of the free 
and the home of the brave," the fagots of Smith- 
field, or the blood-stained keys of the papacy ! 
God prosper the faith of honest men, and be- 
nignly hasten the time when an all-glorious and 
thrice holy religion shall prevail in the earth, 
ever reigning and worshiping " in spirit and in 
truth !" 



31 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 



CHAPTER IV. 

Jesus — Our Ensample. 

Christians, generally, profess to adhere to a 
sound and, in fact, eminently evangelical creed, 
and to pursue their daily walk on the most direct 
and approved road to heaven ; but notwithstand- 
ing this strong and seemingly undoubted assur- 
ance of a well-founded and finally triumphant 
faith, it will be — I conceive, not inappropriate in 
this place, to scrutinize a little closely this con- 
fident expectation; for it is notorious that many 
so-called Christians are but Christians in name, 
and that they — by no means, come up to their 
boasted pretensions. Indeed, it will not be diffi- 
cult to show that their lives must be a good deal 
corrupt, as they evidently emanate from impure 
and, hence, insecure principles. 

It is a fact familiar to all reflecting minds, that 
many, nay, the vast majority of them, have posi- 
tively no strictly personally elaborated religion at 
all. They have never searched diligently after 
truth ; never — it seems, seriously endeavored to de- 
velop the religious sentiment on sound ethic and 
common-sense principles. They are accustomed : 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 35 

if facts arc a true index of conduct, supinely to 
be borne along on the restless, ever-swelling 
stream of time, without a thought whether they 
have a good reason or, indeed, any reason at all, 
for their faith or their hope, except that it has 
been handed down to them in the course of a 
long series of generations, or inculcated by some 
recent creed-founder, whose dogmas might be, 
no doubt, very useful, if they w T ere only true, and, 
therefore, grounded in the Divine ordinations of 
things. In the playful language of the poet, I 
confess, it has very little " relish of salvation 
in't." 

It is abundantly evident that under such ad- 
verse circumstances, the Christian's conscience 
must be exceedingly vague; sadly unself-sus- 
tainecl; largely void of conscientiousness ; and, 
therefore, eminently incompetent to be trusted 
with our destiny or even simply with our well- 
being. And, with these decidedly untoward 
facts boldly staring you in the face, will you, 
who say that you are Christians, still persist 
in the glaring sin of resisting or disregarding 
" the ways of God to man/' and unfeelingly no 
less than stupidly spend your precious time and 
energies in this dreamy half-awake state of 
thought, which must utterly disqualify you to 
give an account of your steivardship ? 

When it happens once in a while, that Chris- 
tians — of the stamp just described, believe aright, 



36 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

or have by searching found out the truth in all 
its strength and beauty, they ignominiously sup- 
press it, fearing gainsay, ridicule, persecution; 
dreading the loss of reputation or the alienation 
of good will, among base, cowardly traitors to 
reason, truth, and every principle of a pure and 
upright life. Here — it will be perceived, it is 
clearly in vain that we look for a manly spirit; a 
self-poised integrity of soul ; here all, or at least 
the greater part, is second-rate, and man — ortho- 
dox by inheritance or a blind creed-nurture, is, 
like a listless toying child, " tossed to and fro, and 
carried about," as the Apostle writes, " with every 
wind of doctrine," mainly or utterly lacking that 
steadfastness of purpose and that deep thorough 
personal conviction, which are absolutely essen- 
tial to the attainment of a reasonable and a well- 
grounded faith. Facts in the eventful ministry 
of Jesus, will throw the needful additional light 
upon this important subject, and prove — it is to 
be hoped, instrumental to stimulate nominal 
Christians into true followers of him, whose 
genuine disciples they now falsely presume to be. 
If now we consult the example of Jesus as a 
believer and accredited exponent of the character 
and duties of the Christian, we shall not long 
be at a loss to decide what — in an ostensibly 
Christian believer, is genuine or spurious ; evan- 
gelical or heretical. And it is well that we have 
some reliable norma, or rule, by which to gage 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 37 

the validity and worth of our faith, and thus to 
define and illustrate our true religious attitude. 
For without it, we should ever fluctuate in doubt 
and misgivings : a most painful state of mind, 
positively inimical to the indispensable conditions 
of self-confidence and a permanent tranquillity of 
soul. 

Jesus I, therefore, proceed to observe, appeared 
among mankind 3s an independent teacher, who 
has made up his faith by personal reflection and 
close scrutiny, and who could, hence, at once re- 
alize and assert its reasonableness and its utility. 
Such an admirable faith — it is clear, inspires the 
soul with profound trust in the triumph of its 
cause; equanimity in the midst of trials; invin- 
cible fortitude in grappling with difficulties ; and 
an untiring patience in the endurance of calam- 
ity. In his intercourse with a rude and bigoted 
community, Jesus never made the least conces- 
sions that might possibly damage the end of his 
great mission, much less did he ever betray or 
sully — as, alas, too many of his unworthy follow- 
ers do, his high trust as " a teacher come from 
God;''* but, on the contrary, he spoke and did, 
according to the Apostle, " as his Father had 
taught him." Would to God, that all men would 
bear in mind that they too have a Father in 
heaven, and that he expects them likewise to 
speak and do what he bids them. Yes, reader, 
God speaks to every one of us. Oh, let us hear 

4 



38 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

him and live ! The reader is here briefly referred 
to a part of the famous " Sermon on the Mount," 
contained in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters 
of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, for a 
brilliant though concise, exemplification of a bold, 
independent, and conscientious specimen of an 
honest expression and vindication of the religious 
sentiment. Strictly in accordance with the spirit 
and bearing of this heart and mind-amelioration, 
Jesus — it will be readily perceived, was not 
slow in applying appropriate and peremptory 
criticism to the Mosaic laws, decidedly not how- 
ever from a captious or fault-finding disposition, 
but solely in response to a rigid obedience of 
the dictates of truth ; for he had come " not to 
destroy but to fulfill" — to amend, to amplify; to 
perpetuate and exalt: Jesus was primarily and 
emphatically the Reformer of the Jewish faith 
and cultus ! 

But — as the Hebrew prophet writes, " To the 
law and to the testimony." According to the old 
Jewish law, murder meant to kill, but in the new 
Messianic code, anger at a person without a cause, 
is declared to be a species of homicide; adultery, 
formerly constituted a violation of the nuptial 
relation, now — under the reformatory system, the 
mere lustful desire of a guilty commerce, is made 
to be tantamount to the same crime ; forswearing 
or perjury was forbidden in the Decalogue, in the 
Gospel, all kinds of swearing are positively inter- 



HONEST F IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 39 

dieted. Again, retaliation of evil was sanctioned 
in Jewish ethics, but in those of the evangeli- 
cal institution, every resistance of evil : clearly 
only a temporary requirement, is absolutely pro- 
hibited ; before the advent of Jesus, his country- 
men taught love to the neighbor or chosen people, 
and hatred to the enemy: a bigoted formula, illy 
adapted to a liberal and healthful social relation, 
which, therefore, categorically as w^ell as wisely 
reversing, Jesus — animated by a better and more 
philanthropic spirit, inculcates love to all men 
indiscriminately,* &c. 

Here, reader, are boldness and self-reliance in 
the face of long-standing and deep-rooted errors 
and prejudices, but they are the boldness and 
self-reliance indispensable in behalf of truth. An 
exhibition of fidelity of this kind, could not but 
give sore offence to the conceited, narrow-minded, 
and self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees, who 
would not fail to instigate the populace: always 
inconstant of purpose, against the daring, upright 
emendator of the long-hallowed and firmly-estab- 
lished national law; but the great and single- 
hearted reformer gave little heed to the impend- 
ing storm. He had especially come on earth to 

* Love here does not — as is often erroneously supposed, de- 
note affectionate attachment, but generous treatment : to love 
an enemy with fond regard, is impossible, and would be wrong 
if it was possible, inasmuch as it would be plainly doing vio- 
lence to the dictates of conscience. 



40 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

tell mankind the truth, and, hence, to set them 
an example of truthfulness, let the Jews and the 
whole world think and do what they might deem 
fit : his path was clearly, divinely marked out, 
and in it he would walk in spite of public opinion ; 
in spite of hallowed usage and iniquitous prac- 
tices ; in spite of all opposition, reviling, persecu- 
tion ; nay, in spite of all orthodox threats of the 
pains of Gehenna itself! 

Jesus, as is reasonable to presume, lay not 
under any absolute decree or necessity to die, or 
even to suffer privations and insults so often 
evoked and so lavishly inflicted, in the course of 
his eventful ministry ; for he might, had he 
deemed proper, have made common cause with 
his discontented countrymen, fierce in their in- 
vincible hatred against the Romans, and their 
blind adherence to a formalism eminently supersti- 
tious and ineffective; he might — to avoid the cruel 
fate that awaited him from his inveterate foes, 
have fled the country; hidden in one of its numer- 
ous and spacious caves, famous already in a re- 
moter age; or withdrawn to the cliffs and ravines 
among the venerable and gigantic cedars of the 
"goodly mountain Lebanon," &c, but he thought 
otherwise. His august mission infinitely surpassed 
every consideration of self-interest in the usual 
secular acceptation of the term : it was, indeed, 
sacred; transcendent; divine: ay, it was nothing 
less than to assert and disseminate the "truth, the 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 41 

whole truth, and nothing but the truth," let it 
cost what it would ! 

Hence too — suchbeing: as we have just learned, 
his lofty and inexorable principles of duty, it came 
to pass that the corrupt hierarchy of his infatu- 
ated people, who modestly claimed to be the 
straightest of the orthodox school of believers, re- 
ceived no favors in the conduct of his just and 
impartial ministry. They were "hypocrites;" 
"false prophets;" "ravening wolves;" a "genera- 
tion of vipers;" " whited sepulchers;" "blind 
guides," &c, and the great "teacher come from 
God," boldly and plainly told them so, regardless 
of consequences, and unconquerable in his love 
of truth; in the advocacy of honesty; and in 
the propagation of a sound, rational, unselfish 
religion. Ecce Homo ! 



4* 



42 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 



CHAPTER V. 

Faith must be a Personal Acquisition. 
PREFATORY REMARKS. 

Man being endowed with the faculty of reason, 
is expected by his Creator to make a diligent and 
faithful use of it, especially in the nurture of his 
religious convictions, and the expression of his 
devotional feelings. To be worthy of its high 
position, his faith, which underlies his entire 
Divine service, must be largely a personal — in most 
cases, an exclusively personal acquisition ; the fruit 
of individual culture ; the result of mature, sin- 
cere, in short, honest reflection. Of course, it is 
also proper to acquaint ourselves with the religious 
opinions and practices of wise and good men on 
this eminently important subject, and, besides, to 
listen respectfully to all well-meant and kindly 
offered advice of friends, who are entitled to our 
esteem, or to affectionate relatives, who are united 
to us by the tenderest ties of which our nature is 
susceptible; but further it would hardly be safe 
to invoke extraneous influences. For beside and 
beyond any benefit that might accrue to us from 
these and similar sources of religious information, 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 43 

it is pre-eminently autopisty, or — according to 
Webster, the " internal worthiness of belief; the 
quality of credibility existing in itself, indepen- 
dently of external circumstances," which must 
be indefatigably adhered to, and unflinchingly 
carried out. Hence it follows that neither the 
creed of parents ; of ancestors ; of ecclesiastical 
bodies ; or of orthodox believers generally, must 
be allowed to decide or to shape our faith, and 
consequently our relations and duties to the 
Deity: such impertinent interference would be 
glaringly sacrilegious ; nay, damnable ! 

PARAGRAPH I. 
Faith is not a Chattel and cannot be bequeathed to us by our Parents. 

It is a great mistake to think that faith can be 
provided for children as raiment, food, or shelter 
is provided for them. In order to possess these 
necessaries, nothing more is needed than simply 
a passive deportment : free-agency in such case, 
is unessential. On the contrary, faith is a spiritual 
attainment, premising effort and the exercise of 
free-will, and can be, therefore, only normal when 
it is the product of deep, close personal reflec- 
tions. Not less erroneous or false is the notion — 
alas, too commonly entertained, that children 
must believe as their parents believe, and that 
the latter do rightly not only to indoctrinate them 
in the distinctive traits of their faith, but, tacitly 
or formally, permanently to obligate them to its 



44 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

observance : an effectual device to perpetuate 
sectism ! Such absurd dealing with the young, 
is grossly suicidal of personal liberty; making 
inert, abject slaves of those who are naturally born 
free; and degrading faith to the nature of a 
chattel ! 

Parents should beware how they tamper with 
the precious and enviable birthright of their 
children — the right of a personally or — in other 
words, spontaneously, developed faith : a faith 
for which labor has been bestowed, deep and 
anxious thought has been spent, and for which, 
very probably, personal reproach and insult have 
been heroically and confidently endured. Their 
conduct in interfering with adult-rights of the 
soul, is eminently destructive of all reasonable 
worship, all true religion, and, hence, extremely 
reprehensible ; for they virtually train up their 
children to a dead, sinless, and disgraceful formal- 
ism ; nay, to a mockery of religion : a spectacle 
most odious and disreputable, thus completely 
disqualifying them for the attainment of a cor- 
rect, tenable conception of the real import and 
proper tendency of genuine religion, or the just 
appreciation of a strictly honest and conscientious 
worship of God. In fact, the tendency of this — no 
doubt well-meant, but decidedly nefarious guar- 
dianship, is to make spiritual cripples of their 
children, and they, hence, send them — thinking of 
doing God a service, " maimed, halt, and blind," 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 45 

into the very " holy of holies/*' of the temple of 
God : as they believe ! 

I am far from teaching or wishing that parents 
should neglect the religious education of their 
children, or suffer them to grow up without any 
faith or creed at all, but what I insist on, is, that 
all instruction in this regard, should be merely 
provisional, and subject to future revision, amend- 
ment, addition, curtailment, or rejection alto- 
gether, as shall be deemed expedient. Indeed, 
parents are under solemn obligation — to the best 
of their ability, to bring up their children "in 
the nurture and admonition of the Lord," and 
though they should teach them falsely or instill 
principles into their minds, absolutely hurtful to 
sound, religious training, or the practice of whole- 
some, rational devotion, they are to be held ex- 
cusable, even in case of so disastrous a result of 
their teaching, having done the best— under the 
circumstances, they have been able to do. But 
to attempt to forestall the possibility of a better, 
truer creed, and a more advanced and improved 
mode of Divine worship, is criminally ignoring 
or positively repudiating God's ways of educating 
and ameliorating mankind; is robbing children 
of their inherent rights ; and fatally vitiating the 
noblest, highest aspirations of the soul ! 



46 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

PARAGRAPH II. 

The Faith of Our Ancestors should not Influence us in the Choice 

of Our Religion. 

A knowledge of comparative theology, ac- 
quaints us with the interesting and highly in- 
structive fact, that there exist an exceedingly 
great number of religious creeds among the dif- 
ferent races of mankind. A proof that — at least 
among civilized nations, there have been always 
independent and fearless thinkers on religious 
subjects, and that ancestral beliefs have, by no 
means, invariably influenced — much less decided, 
the faith and worship of posterity. This striking 
propensity in man to devise and build up new and 
better religious institutions, and to give ear to 
the utterances of an advanced and more sensitive 
conscience, completely verifies the idea that it is 
radically inherent in the constitution and in- 
stincts of human nature, and that it is, hence, a 
necessary phenomenon in human progress, espe- 
cially in its psychical, or mental phase ; that it is 
evidently a Divine provision ; that to cultivate it 
is, therefore, not only right but a sacred duty ; 
and that, consequently, a diversity of religious 
opinions is a perfectly normal and unavoidable 
as well as indispensable element in the develop- 
ment of our spiritual growth, and has thus, most 
undoubtedly, the entire and emphatic sanction of 
the Creator. 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP, tf 

Why then, such being the case, is there so 
much fault found with dissenters from existing 
religious organizations ; their motives impu- 
dently questioned ; or their opinions rudely de- 
nounced? Evidently because their conscientious 
convictions urge then) into channels of faith and 
worship, differing from those which time and 
prejudice have consecrated as saving Shibboleths, 
they are lustily decried as infidels, apostates, nay, 
as wretches, who — Uzzah-like, impiously pre- 
sume to touch old orthodoxy, modestly deemed 
holy as a second ark of God ! Among such dis- 
senters and founders of new sects or religious 
institutions, may briefly be enumerated, as in- 
stances in point, in more recent times, such men 
as Waldus, Wickliffe, Luther, Zwinglius, Cal- 
vin,* Knox, Soger Williams, Wesley, &c, beside 
many others both in heathen and Christian coun- 
tries. Such an exclusive and wicked mode of 
thought, must seem very strange to a liberal and 
magnanimous mind, and illy accord with the gen- 
erally entertained ideas of the founders of the 
Protestant Church, who — though they are de- 
nounced and execrated by Roman Catholics as 
vile and godless innovators and despisers of dear, 
venerable orthodox forms of faith — now, alas, 



* Guilty, certainly, of a most atrocious deed, in instigating 
— on account of diversity of faith ! the horrid death of Ser- 
velus. 



48 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

grown somewhat musty from age and want of a 
proper airing, are, nevertheless, held in great 
esteem among the different Protestant denomi- 
nations. They all consider them w T orthy and 
good men, never — it seems, realizing the start- 
ling fact, that they too come under the category 
of dissenters, and are, therefore, no less infidels 
and apostates than those usually misnamed such, 
inasmuch as they too, as well as the heretical pro- 
fessors of religion : whose creeds have not at- 
tained to the distinction of a separate ecclesias- 
tical foundation, are deserters from hoary, deep- 
rooted ancestral confessions of faith. Yes, reader, 
Luther — according to the bigot's ridiculous nom- 
enclature, was an infidel, a heretic, a very Belial 
of impiety and black ingratitude, and such Sa- 
tanic brood were, of course, all the Reformers, 
in all ages and among all peoples, without ex- 
ception and without redemption ! 

In the face of these eminently salient facts, 
touching the present weighty question, it is sur- 
prising with what wonderful tenacity- — for ex- 
ample, Lutherans, German Reformed, Baptists, 
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, &c, 
will persist in maintaining their old, hereditary, 
now and then a little threadbare creed-connec- 
tions, as if there was a necessarily saving virtue 
in such connection ; a special honor ; a sure 
passport to. heaven. Do these credulous, silly 
men- worshipers not perceive that — while they 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 49 

dread to set up an independent religion accord- 
ing to their real convictions and deep yearnings, 
and thus do like their adored heresiarchs did 
when they forsook the long-cherished and hal- 
lowed faith of their fathers, and inaugurated new 
creeds and forms of worship, they stupidly in- 
dorse in others what, in their case, they deem a 
heinous sin, a certain falling away from the only 
hope and guarantee of salvation ? 

Such timid Christians — to say the least, are 
contemptible cowards, who dare not do what 
conscience bids them to do; what God says do; 
what their honor, their happiness, their peace of 
mind, their hope of heaven, bid them impera- 
tively to do. Their leaders of the Protestant 
faith, broke away without hesitation or nice bal- 
ancing of consequences, from error, oppression, 
credulity, in short, from a false faith and corrupt 
cultus, valuing their souls more dearly than the 
continued favor or smiles of the ancestral church, 
but they foolishly persevere in their ungenial and 
irksome relations, in spite of the rebukes of a 
wounded and abused conscience, instead of res- 
olutely treading in their footsteps and shaking 
off as no longer endurable, what — in the language 
of the Apostle, they cannot persist in believing 
as true, or honest, or of good report, they virtu- 
ally continue with their arms folded, their eyes 
averted, and their lips closed, to rock themselves 
in the rickety cradle of the old orthodox nursery 

5 



50 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

of their childhood, now illy adapted to lull souls 
distracted with doubts, and anxiously looking 
for more light and a better hope, as well as pro- 
foundly sensible — though they dare not avow it, 
that " he who never changed an opinion, never 
corrected any of his errors." * 

Let us now suppose a church-member to man- 
ifiest dissatisfaction with his ecclesiastical rela- 
tion, and betray an inclination or openly avow 
a wish to join another religious denomination, 
there will be immediately expressions of regret, 
or symptoms of surprise and astonishment. 
" What — the inquiry is, will such a one, who 
has always been your warm friend, and never 
doubted your Christian zeal, say, when he hears 
of the threatened defection ? Your family — 
known to the whole congregation for its staunch 
orthodoxy, must, my clear sir, be almost over- 
whelmed with anxiety and shame at so sad an 
incident; indeed, all the faithful, in whose or- 
thodox bosom you have been nursed so long, 
and whose faith and hopes you have once so 
happily shared, feel as if their hearts should 
break at the thought of so distressing a fatality. 
Oh, be dissuaded from your fell purpose. By 
the sacred memory of a close and intimate friend- 
ship, let me entreat you to stay and to be content 
in a connection in which so many have lived 

* American Phrenological Journal, and Life Illustrated. 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 51 

hopefully and died in peace: if salvation is not 
with us, where will you find it? Our faith — I 
assure you on the basis of our good old creed, is 
4 the faith once delivered to the saints,' and is : I 
feel fully persuaded, the only pure and really 
evangelical, or tenable faith. Oh, be advised; 
believe implicitly as you have been taught, never 
doubting;, and all will be well !" He is won back 
into the fold; walks again in the old ruts of tra- 
dition ; and — with a deep sense of shame and self- 
abasement, is miserable the rest of his life ! 

PARAGRAPH III. 

Ecclesiastical Bodies must not be allowed to dictate or control our 

Faith. 

Ecclesiastical bodies — considered in the light 
of Christian institutions, are primarily designed 
to teach and disseminate the religion, which the 
congregations or pastorates, existing within the 
bounds of their organizations, distinctly and em- 
phatically recognize as their creed. This creed 
may be ever so false or unreasonable, as long as 
the people, whose approval it has, are satisfied 
with it, they are under evident obligation faith- 
fully to adhere to it, or else — animated by sounder 
views, seek more promising fields of labor ; for 
they have no right, and must, therefore, not be 
allowed to dictate or control the faith of any re- 
ligious body, not even of " their own members." 
The reason is plain, inasmuch as faith must be a 



52 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

free, personal acquisition, without, rude extrane- 
ous human interference, otherwise it is really no 
faith at all, but only the result of training, imbu- 
ing, in short, merely a dull, insensate conven- 
tionalism, essentially worthless to the furtherance 
of a higher soul-development as well as a more 
intellectual and truthful communion with God. 

As far as my experience goes, I am warranted 
in saying that most clergymen have but very 
vague and incorrect ideas of the nature of true 
faith, since they are, seemingly, at least, too 
often, alas, satisfied with second-hand creeds, as 
the recognized, sole exponents of their faith. 
Permit me, gentlemen, to state to you: who pre- 
sume — in the name of the Lord, to bear " the 
crook," and to feed " the flock" of the gospel- 
fold, that faith is decidedly inductive in its origin, 
that — resting upon adequate evidence, it rejects 
speculation; that it is normally and eminently 
a common-sense product; and that, hence, it 
only — being the result of a deep, sincere per- 
sonal research, is to be deemed legitimate and 
available in the sight of God. Think not, then, 
that you can impart it and stamp it as genuine. 
All that you can do toward its attainment, is to 
call attention to it ; to give your opinion about 
it; to suggest its adoption, &c. ; nothing more! 
For every one of us, as he may hope to stand at 
the bar of God, unrebuked and uncondemned, 
must have — as I have already shown, an auto- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 53 

pislic ; that is, an intrinsic, strictly personally 
elaborated faith : a faith that is his own : as the 
child is the offspring of the parent. This species 
of faith — not the ceremonial parade of an entailed 
pretense under that name, is positively, permit 
me further to tell you, the only effective, saving, 
God-indorsed faith, and this alone — among all 
the myriad creeds of mankind, will stand the 
fiery ordeal of " the last day;" for it alone will 
be " erectus acl sidera"! 

The instant, therefore, a minister of the Gos- 
pel undertakes to dictate or control the faith of 
any person, and demands that it shall be deemed 
final and immutable — as he has inculcated it, he 
must be peremptorily resisted and disowned as a 
base inquisitor, and a deadly enemy to the inborn, 
inalienable rights of man. It is time to learn and 
carefully to lay to heart the paramount fact, that 
our admirable republican institutions guarantee 
to the people of the United States, liberty of con- 
science : a free and untrammeled making up and 
profession of their faith ; and that any interference 
or trifling with this most precious guarantee, is at 
once a crime against the Republic and a sacrilege 
against Gocl ! By all that is deemed sacred and 
holy among men, I, therefore, beseech you always 
to respect and profoundly to cherish that inesti- 
mable blessing — the inviolable right to the undis- 
puted enjoyment of our conscientious convictions. 
" Who" — I add finally, exclaims the apostle of 

5* 



54 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

the gentiles, " art thou that judgest another man's 
servant. To his own master he standeth or fall- 
eth ; yea, he shall be holden up : for God is able 
to make him stand" ! 

It may be proper too, in this place, to state con- 
cisely, but in plain and lucid language, that man 
must enjoy freedom of will, and possess the powder 
of a spontaneous origination of his faith, other- 
wise, it is clear, he will not be answerable for his 
religious attitude toward God; for the profession 
of an imposed, blind faith, is absolutely tanta- 
mount to a practical renunciation of all sound and 
useful moral principles : it is simply a chattel, 
and infallibly involves the vitiation and degrada- 
tion of the intellect: the pride and glory of man. 
Behold, what an abject thing a man is when his 
religion is devoid of ratiocination ; his faith shorn 
of spontaneity ; and his ritual observances a sense- 
less fetichism — a mockery ! Prepare for a solemn 
reckoning, ye willfully-blind guides; ye, who, 
without scruple, " lord it over God's heritage;" 
ye, who presume to arrogate to yourselves the 
place of God in the souls of his children ! Satis 
est. 

PARAGRAPH IV. 

Orthodox Believers, who constitute a Vast Majority in the Christian 
Church, must not rule in Matters of Faith; for Reason only, not 
Numbers, can decide in such Case. 

The history of dogmatics, or — in other words, 
of doctrinal theology, shows plainly that majori- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 55 

ties are decidedly the creed-makers in the Chris- 
tian Church. This majority-reign in religion, has 
proved a blight and a stain to the good name and 
ready dissemination of the Gospel. For nothing 
can be conceived to be more absurd and wicked 
than the reference of our faith to a plurality of 
voices, as it is clear from the character of many 
that are included in it, that if it could be weighed 
instead of counted, it would often be found to be 
greatly in the minority. Besides, in many in- 
stances, a careful and impartial criticism must 
unhesitatingly reject and condemn it as the un- 
doubted betrayal of an unholy ambition as well 
as a most contemptible and dangerous fanaticism. 
The idea, that a person's faith — the highest ethic 
achievement of the soul, should be submitted to 
vote, and conscience be made the plaything of 
accident, intrigue, or sacerdotal tyranny, is ex- 
tremely shocking to the reflecting and unsophis- 
ticated mind, as it indicates a shameful and wicked 
infraction of personal rights, and — of course, a 
high-handed wrong, which is no longer patiently 
to be borne, and which cries aloud in stern thun- 
der-tones for a speedy and a thorough correction. 
" I cannot," says Luther, " submit my faith either 
to the Pope or to the Councils, because it is as 
clear as noonday that they have often fallen into 
error, and even into glaring inconsistency with 
themselves," &c.* 

* D'Aubigne's " Reformation in Germany and Switzerland." 



56 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR 



Professedly orthodox believers, generally, have 
really no faith at all — " earned in the sweat of 
the face," and, hence, no genuine faith to bestow 
upon the rest of mankind, as theirs is clearly only 
derived or impost, not the indispensable sequence 
— as it should be, of a careful and diligent per- 
sonal elaboration : it has no logic to point to, and 
is, therefore, only a sorry abortion of the religious 
sentiment. Whence it follows, that the deluded 
possessors of such spurious and vain faith, which 
is purely only mechanical in its nature, and well 
adapted to promote an inert, passive state of mind, 
are altogether unable to give a satisfactory account 
of it, not having investigated either its spirit, its 
origin, or its tendency. Nevertheless, all men 
are explicitly or impliedly required to believe the 
received orthodox creeds ; to subscribe the Shib- 
boleth of the many; and — in default of prompt 
compliance, they are certain to be slandered, 
abused, and insulted with all kinds of reproachful 
and savage epithets. Is this a specimen of the 
boasted charity and Christian toleration of or- 
thodox believers? Is this the spirit that should 
animate the followers of the " meek and lowly" 
Jesus ? Fie, for shame, hide your guilty heads, 
ye modern Sauls, full of the ignoble spirit of 
persecution, " breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter against the disciples of the Lord" ! 

The founders of Christianitv were not governed 
— I am happy to say, by this widely accepted, in- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 57 

solent majority-rule in the dominant Christian 
Church, otherwise they would never have excited 
the enmity and alarmed the fears of the bigoted 
Jews, or been doomed to endure manifold per- 
secutions and cruel deaths, on account of their 
apostasy from the faith and the cultus of their 
fathers. The same remarks hold good in their 
application to the Reformers, and founders of 
Protestantism, in the sixteenth century, who 
would have remained good, devout, and — of 
course, illiberal Roman Catholics, if they had 
continued blindly to yield their consciences to 
the decisions and prestige of " Holy Mother 
Church." But guided by a lofty, manly spirit, 
and honest principles, they seceded from their 
unsavory ecclesiastical connection, and boldly, 
yet in the fear of God, set up a creed and form 
of worship of their own making; and which — 
though far from being faultless, or an unexcep- 
tional solution of the soterial problem, was, doubt- 
less, sincere, and they could, therefore, justly 
point to it, and say " it is our work ; we will stand 
by it." If — I will merely add, a creed is good, 
God will be sure to own and bless it, if bad, or 
false, he will not fail to withhold his favor, and 
it will finally inevitably make room for a better, 
because more truthful and common-sense one ! 

A little well-meant and pertinent advice may 
probably not be amiss here, to those Christians, 
who happen to live within the bounds of the or- 



58 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

thodox Churches, and who — having misgivings 
that their faith is more heretical than evangelical, 
yearn for an improved and more genial creed, but 
who, alas, from worldly or social considerations, 
are loth to break away from the old religious sur- 
roundings, thus unhappily proving false to their 
better and truer convictions ! Think for a mo- 
ment, I pray you, what you are doing. God sees, 
knows you, and in what light do you suppose you 
will appear to him, the Searcher of Hearts? In 
the light of unfaithful, heartless men and women, 
who value a base, time-serving profession of re- 
ligion more than obedience to their God, and 
devotion to their duty ! Arise, " stand fast in 
the faith: grounded in higher aspirations and 4 a 
hope that maketh not ashamed;' quit you like 
men ; be strong" ! 

A stanza from the poem: "Der alte Land- 
mann," by Holte, one among many of Ger- 
many's distinguished poets, will — on account of 
its singular appropriateness to verify and illus- 
trate the last subdivision of this paragraph, close 
this brief dissertation : 

11 Ueb' immer Treu' unci Kedlichkeit 
Bis an dein kiihles Grab, 
Und weiche keinen Fingerbreit 
Von Gotte« "Wegen ab ! 
Dann wirst du : wie auf grunen Au'n, 
Durch's Pilgerleben gehn ; 
Dann kannst du sonder Furcht und Grau'n 
Dem Tod in's Antlitz sehn." 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 59 



CHAPTER VI. 

Martyrs to Religious Convictions, have left us an Example, 
Worthy of our Highest Regard. 

Martyrs — in the grand an( l interesting cause 
of religion, have played an important, indeed, a 
normative part in the history of the world, though 
their numbers : compared with the rest of man- 
kind, have always been small. Small however 
as they have been, they have done extremely 
good service in behoof of truth and righteous- 
ness, especially in asserting the inestimable rights 
of conscience, and thus vindicating the cardinal 
principle, which underlies all true and feasible 
ideas of faith and Divine worship— the ideas that 
every person, capable of a proper exercise of 
reason, must be freely and unconditionally per- 
mitted to frame a religious creed agreeably to 
the plain dictates of his conscience, without in- 
terference or gainsay from any one ; for the cause 
is eminently sacred, and in the furtherance of it : 
so weighty in itself, and positively essential to 
the highest interests of our race, the earnest, 
honest, truth-seeking believer will not hesitate 
to defy ignominy and to brave even death itself! 



60 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

A martyr, in the Christian acceptation of the 
word, is — according to Webster, " One who, by 
his death bears witness to the truth of the Gos- 
pel." Though — in itself, this definition is unex- 
ceptionable, it is too narrow to embrace the lim- 
its of the present subject, and I shall, therefore, 
so far deviate from it as to designate a martyr as 
one, who dies in vindication of his religious con- 
victions, and, consequently, in illustration, as well 
as to the enhancement of his faith. Christian 
martyrs — it is evident, died in glorification of 
the Gospel ; died as Christians for a religion 
which they thought to be the only true and 
saving one; but all other systems of religion 
have likewise had their martyrs : their witnesses 
to the truth, enforced by the clear voice of con- 
science, and sanctified as well as exalted by un- 
swerving trust in Divine approval, who believed 
their creeds and liturgic observances of heavenly 
origin, and soterial in their efficacy. Whence it 
happened that they too hesitated not to die in de- 
fence of them, rather than cower before the in- 
fatuated persecutor, or meanly apostatize from 
" the faith once delivered to the saints." 

As far as the principle of martyrdom alone is in- 
volved, it matters not whether the martyr suffers 
and dies for a true religion and a sound faith, or 
for a delusion, a phantom : it is enough if he has 
the honest, unfaltering conviction that he offers 
himself a sacrifice in the sacred cause of right- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. Q\ 

eousness as he understands, or can appreciate it. 
"Whence it follows that — with the best intentions, 
the zealous martyr may and, no doubt, often does, 
give eclat to a fallacy instead of to a truth. I 
have, hence, no hesitancy in believing that many 
even among the early Christian martyrs : whom — 
at first blush, we might suppose the most exempt 
from error and visionary hope, died under false 
impressions and extravagant anticipations, think- 
ing, for example, among other hallucinations, that 
the second advent of Christ was imminent, and 
that, consequently, they should sustain but small 
detriment in dvins; for the sake of him, who 
would most undoubtedly speedily reappear, ac- 
cording to the prevailing chiliastic belief of the 
primitive Christians : inherited from their con- 
ceited Jewish ancestors, and establish his glori- 
ous and thrice beatific kingdom upon the earth, in 
which " the wicked would cease from troubling, 
and the weary be at rest." This flattering and 
emphatically inspiring expectation — which con- 
stituted a leading article of faith in the infantile 
Church, and powerfully encouraged the spirit of 
martyrdom, was — I regret to say, never realized, 
and, therefore, though it was fallacious, and — so 
far an evil and misleading, the principle which 
actuated the martyr, was unexceptional, and, ac- 
cordingly, needs no justification. 

Some of the theses in the foregoing arguments, 

may, probably, be charged with the advocacy of 

6 



62 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

selfish motives, or utilitarian principles, as the 
ulterior end in human conduct. To which it 
may be replied, that all human conduct, guided 
by moral considerations, must necessarily spring 
from motives, and that — of course, the motives 
are the cause of conduct, or the reason of will- 
ing. But no body of sound mind and possessing 
free-agency, can possibly resolve to act for bad 
ends, or without anv ends at all. Hence he 
seeks a good or an advantage in all that he does, 
and would be exceedingly foolish to act other- 
wise, or without a regard to final results. What 
the ancient Stoics and other philosophers since 
their days, have taught, that " virtue is its own 
reward," is readily conceded as true ; but then, it 
is the reward, the good, that is the end of virtuous 
action, and, without gain of some kind, it would 
be useless, and — in fact, in a moral point of view, 
impossible to act at all ! 

Common sense as well as equal right, tells us 
that however firmly we may be persuaded that 
our faith is true, nay, that it is truer than any 
other, or in other w r ords, the only really true 
faith that exists, we have no right to force its 
acceptance upon any one. Creeds, which have 
their origin in coercion, are intrinsically useless 
as a means of a true and healthful soul-growth, 
and are an evident and grossly flagitious encroach- 
ment upon the personal rights and free-agency of 
our fellow-beings. Nor, on the other hand, is it 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 63 

proper or ethically lawful for any one to oppose 
or hinder the peaceful propagation of religious 
opinions. Should, therefore, such an attempt be 
made, common prudence as well as natural jus- 
tice, dictates retaliation : not in a spirit of re- 
venge, but for the laudable purpose of vindicating 
an inalienable right. Thus — to illustrate a case 
in point, Mohammed : the founder of a religious 
creed, professed by one-third of the human race, 
being confronted in military array by the tribes 
of his country, who were still wedded to their 
ancient superstitions, and — of course, violently 
opposed to his innovations in the orthodox faith, 
in turn seized the sword — as was his imperative 
duty upon the occasion, nor again sheathed it, 
till he and his followers — technically called Mus- 
sulmans, had subdued the enemy, and secured the 
triumph of Islamism : " There is one God, and 
Mohammed is his Prophet." When subse- 
quently, Mohammed carried his victorious arms 
into foreign countries, and — at the point of his 
trusty blade, claimed submission, tribute, or 
faith . in the Koran, he sinned most grievously 
against the hallow T ed principles of equal rights, 
and is, hence, justly held amenable to the severe 
censures of posterity. A great man, too may 
err; for " to err," we are told, u is human;" but 
when he commits a grave error upon the mo- 
mentous subject of religion, and — instead of 
commending it to the approval of mankind by 



64 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

its intrinsic worth, he makes his proselytes, not 
by suasion, but by conquest, every friend of true 
religion — now profoundly mortified, might well 
cry out : "Ichabod — her " glory is departed" ! 

Martyrs — it is to be hoped, have not lived, or 
suffered and died in vain. Their example — 
which falls under the category of extraordinary 
events, is, therefore, to be accounted among the 
rare and salient feats of human heroism, and is 
precious as it is rare : plainly deserving to be 
classed with the brightest specimens of moral 
grandeur, worthy no less of our imitation than 
of our hearty approval. For if any good or 
blessing is sufficiently valuable to be purchased 
at the cost of life — the sweetest enjoyment and 
dearest gift of God, in this richly endowed and 
wonderfully diversified mundane sphere, it is the 
religious sentiment: true or — upon mature, can- 
did reflection, and devout communing w T ith God, 
held to be true ; for conscientious conviction that 
it is true, is enough to stamp martyrdom with the 
Divine sanction, and give it a niche — radiant in 
undying luster, in the hearts of all honest men ! 

Finally, I entertain not the least doubt, that — 
in the gospel of St. John, Jesus mainly calls him- 
self "the way, and the truth, and the life/' be- 
cause by the exercise of the splendid virtues, im- 
plied by these epithets, in his martyr-death, he 
leads believers to the Father. A death which — 
beyond all cavil, demonstrates in the clearest 



HON EST V IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 65 

and most triumphant manner, liis intense love of 
truth as well as his invincible adherence to his 
religious convictions. Such a way — as the one 
here pointed out: the way of unflinchingly as- 
serting the rights of conscience amid the pains 
of death and the mockeries of formalism, is the 
duty that truth claims in a last emergency and 
the crowning act of its followers. Such is heaven, 
thus sought and fomid ! Hell, what is it? In 
his " Night Thoughts," Young thus answers 
the question : 

11 For, what, my small philosopher !* is hell ? 
? Tis nothing, but full knowledge of the truth, 
When truth, resisted long, is sworn our foe; 
And calls eternity to do her right !" 

* Lorenzo, the poet's interlocutor. 



6* 



66 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 



CHAPTER VII. 

The justice and goodness of God exemplify True Belief. 

In singling out, in this place, the justice and 
goodness of God, as normative of a true faith, I 
wish — by no means, to convey the idea, that they 
are more admirable or holy, and, therefore, more 
worthy our devout and earnest attention, than 
any other of the adorable Divine attributes, but 
that I give them preference simply for the reason 
that they are generally more intelligible, and, 
hence, especially adapted to be introduced here 
to the reader's notice, as long familiar and readily 
appreciable forms of God's method of dealing 
with mankind. Besides, the nature and signifi- 
cance of these attributes do not entirely tran- 
scend our capacity to comprehend what is right 
and good, but emphatically come within the 
sphere of our daily lives and most sacred duties. 

The justice of God, according to Bretschneider, 
a learned German theologian and eminent writer 
on dogmatics in the last century, is defined as 
" the attribute, agreeably to which, God prescribes 
laws to his rational creatures: the obedience to 
which, he rewards, while the disobedience to 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 67 

them, he punishes." Examples will further ver- 
ify and illustrate these simple — in fact, common- 
sense propositions. 

The industrious, prudent person, who — for ex- 
ample, diligently cultivates the earth; plants and 
sows at the appointed times; wisely rears the 
useful herb and tree ; husbands, with care and 
forethought, the abundant resources, which the 
Creator has kindly placed at his disposal ; and 
thus dutifully co-operates with the rains and 
sunshines, the dews and the breezes of heaven, 
has a harvest to reap, plenty of bread to eat, and 
a conscience to smile upon his efforts; whereas 
the sluggard, despising or, at least shunning, 
honest labor, and thus wasting his precious time 
in idleness, and contempt of a primary law of our 
being, has want, lives in wretchedness, and dies 
branded with i^nominv, and loathed as a vile 
thing. Behold the scrupulous equity of the 
Divine justice, awarding blessings and pleasures 
to the deserving, the submissive to " the ways of 
God to man;" but poverty and suffering and in- 
famy to the unworthy — a rebel against the plain 
laws and interests of his destiny. Thus — as an 
English author pertinently remarks, " Virtue and 
vice have a natural ordination to the happiness 
and misery of life respectively." 

Again, the sensible, economical possessor of 
this world's goods, will so apply his stores as to do 
good both to himself and others, without waste 



68 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

or extravagant indulgence. He considers himself 
very properly as God's steward, and seeks — as 
much as possible, to administer his high and re- 
sponsible office in strict conformity to the dictates 
of duty and the hallowed principles of justice : 
he is a fellow-worker with God, and prospers; 
not thus deports himself the prodigal, who wastes 
'■ the portion of goods that have fallen to him," 
with riotous living: the justice of Heaven soon 
overtakes him; he suffers extreme want; is 
spurned by all good men; and doomed to sink 
into abject and squalid poverty ! A part of the 
first Psalm, will enable the reader to trace the 
source of the success and prosperity of the one, 
while a part likewise of the fifteenth chapter of 
the Gospel according to St. Luke, will explain 
and justify the ill luck and sad disasters, which 
befell the other. 

These instances, in proof of the mode and un- 
failing certainty, which characterize the admin- 
istration of Divine justice among mankind, are 
indeed but few as well as concisely stated; yet 
this will not be considered to be strange, when it 
is observed that the object of this disquisition is, 
not to be exhaustive, but simply illustrative, 
giving the reader a proper idea of the subject, 
and enabling him to form a just estimate of its 
importance. The great truth to be thoroughly 
impressed upon the mind here, is, that virtue is 
infallibly rewarded, not punished ; while, on the 



HONESTY IN OVR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 69 

other hand, vice is just as inevitably punished, 
not rewarded ! 

If now we advert to the attribute of God. de- 
nominated his goodness, Ave find the following; 
definition given of it, by the same eminent 
authority just quoted: " The goodness of God — 
also called grace in its more extended accepta- 
tion," says he, "is that Divine attribute, accord- 
ing to which God confers as much happiness 
upon his sentient creatures as — in accordance 
with their natures and cosmic relations, they are 
capable of enjoying." This view of the subject, 
is no less distinct and readily understood than it 
is clearly and concisely expressed, and unmis- 
takably announces the fact, that God is good, and 
that the proof of it is patent in the beneficent 
manner, in which he has endowed his sentient 
creature : the end of the endowment being : the 
inference is inevitable at sight, the happiness, not 
the misery, or even blank contentment, of his 
creatures ! 

As far as the science of zoology has been ex- 
plored with sufficient care and success, there has 
never yet a creature been found, no matter how 
low or how hioh in the scale of animated nature 
its rank might be, whose organization, instincts, 
and habits: rare abnormal eases excepted, do not 
furnish most decisive proof of beneficent design 
in the Creator, and, consequently, undoubted 
signs of enjoyment in the creature : everywhere 



70 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

a voice resounds, " God is good ! he bestows life 
to bestow blessings!" Man too — of course: as 
the most consummate specimen of created perfec- 
tion known to us, is happy in his sentient exist- 
ence, and — such is the intensity of his sense of 
wellbeing, as the consequence of the admirable 
structure as well as exquisite functions of his won- 
derful organism, that — though his path in life is 
often rugged, and beset with thorns and precipices, 
he is: taken as a rule, in a vast majority of cases, 
loth to part with a blessing so great; a joy so ex- 
alted and so engrossing. — Though this species of 
human happiness is marked, and strongly indica- 
tive of the creative goodness of God, man's men- 
tal adaptiveness to life-enjoyment, and, hence, 
evidence of Divine goodness, far surpasses the 
bodily sources of delight and comfort. Thus 
thought — considered as discoursive, judgment, 
volition, memory, simply regarded as human 
faculties, are soul-prerogatives, and, as such, in- 
volve a degree of pleasure and satisfaction, un- 
known among inferior grades of life. Add to 
these grand endowments, the extraordinary gift 
of articulate speech, and the power of commu- 
nicating our thoughts even to remote lands and 

CD O 

ages ; the implanting of the tender sentiments of 
love and affection, together with a high apprecia- 
tive sense of the family and the social ties ; the 
rare and important ability to adapt our conduct 
to the hallowed principles of ethics, sanctioned 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 71 

by conscience, and verified by experience; and, 
above all, the propensity, universally inherent in 
mankind, to recognize and adore the God, whose 
goodness is so conspicuous : all these striking 
instances in point — standing out in bold relief, 
elicit, at once, our profounclest admiration and 
unbounded gratitude! 

From the foregoing exhibition of the nature 
of the .Divine justice and goodness, it appears as 
clearly as that two and three are five, or that a 
part is less than the whole, that God being — as I 
have proved, just and good, cannot: being God 
and, therefore — as the Apostle writes, without 
" variableness, or shadow of turning," be now 
just and good, and, at another time, unjust and 
bad : his way is straight, not crooked as man's, 
alas, often is ! 

Having found in the exemplifications adduced 
above, that the justice of God is of such a char- 
acter that it invariably rewards the good, and 
punishes the wicked; or, in other words, that the 
innocent and the guilty are never confounded, 
and that the guilty alone is punished, while the 
innocent is unharmed : such is the plain, un- 
doubted result of our investigation. Let us now 
compare these principles with a couple widely 
accepted dogmas in the orthodox churches — the 
imputation of Adam's sin, and man's punishment 
in an endless hell. 

I have already demonstrated in several of my 



72 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

Works, that — as a mere matter of history, the 
imputation of the sin of Adam, the hypothetical 
progenitor of mankind, is clearly out of the ques- 
tion, inasmuch as no such person has existed, or 
— supposing that he has existed, he cannot have 
been the ancestor of our race, as a«*es and a^es 
before him, man existed upon the globe. Be- 
sides, considered as a question of right, the im- 
putation of another's guilt to innocent persons, 
whether descendants of him or not, would be a 
flagrant wrong, and — though an evil being might 
do so diabolical a thing, a just God, w T ho punishes 
only the guilty, is incapable of committing so 
black a crime. If, therefore, Jesus taught such 
a monstrous doctrine, let the proof be adduced : 
I have shown, on former occasions, that — sound 
principles of exegesis deciding, he is totally ret- 
icent on the subject! 

As to the hell of orthodox import and dimen- 
sions, it is a foolish conceit as well as a falsehood 
of the vilest kind, and not to be entertained for a 
moment by any reasonable being. A father, and 
that father too the heavenly Father, to punish his 
children, whom — for wise and good purposes, he 
has been pleased to make peccable, or susceptible 
of sin, that they might be likewise susceptible of 
virtue, by the infliction of everlasting torment for 
eniiiff, or doing: amiss, in their struo-o-le towards 
moral growth, and that too without the possibility 
of making repentance available to the alleviation 



HON EST y IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 73 

of suffering, or the rescue from vice and folly, is 
a doctrine fit only to he believed by lunatics, and 
presided over by Furies! For the honor of hu- 
manity, I insist that the name of God shall be no 
longer desecrated by the profession of a creed at 
once so silly and so monstrous, and that, hence- 
forth, God shall be considered to be no less just 
than an earthly parent, who punishes his off- 
spring to correct, not to torment; to ameliorate, 
not to destroy them ! To lie to the detriment of 
man is bad, but to lie against God, and call it 
divine worship, is a feat, which had never been 
attempted — except perhaps in Pandemonium, be- 
fore the introduction of orthodox creeds into the 
ritual of the primitive and unsullied forms of 
Christian worship ! 

Adverting now to the goodness of God, it will 
not be difficult to perceive that it teaches a lesson 
equally effective and distinct in its elucidation 
and repudiation of the dismal questions at issue 
— -the imputation of sin and the infliction of hell- 
punishment. — The dogma of the imputation of 
sin, already partially had under review, and de- 
nounced on the principle of being iniquitous, and 
— of course, militating against the Divine jus- 
tice, demands a prior notice. What then does the 
goodness of God teach in this regard? " That," 
I answer, " he maketh his sun to rise on the evil 
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
and on the unjust;" that — as we have seen, in the 



74 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

brief portraiture we have given of it, it is his de- 
light to make all his sentient creatures, especially 
man — the highest type of organic vitality, happy; 
that he is far : from the very nature of his good- 
ness, from entailing the sins of the guilty upon 
the innocent, as that would be not only unjust, 
but cruel, and in utter violation of the evident 
principles of his goodness ; that " in him we live, 
and move, and have our being;" and that — to 
crown the whole, he " commendeth his love" — 
his affectionate goodness, " toward us, in that — 
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." 

Adam and Eve, according to the generally ac- 
cepted beliefs, sowed transgression, and — accord- 
ing to Scripture-teaching, as well as in spite of 
antagonistic human creeds, they : and they only, 
had to reap the evil consequences. This is jus- 
tice, becoming Divinity no less than man, and it 
is also goodness, running parallel here with the 
justice of God, w T ho has undeniably ordained only 
enjoyment — not suffering, for man, and, hence, 
employs chastisement only to reform, ameliorate, 
and conduct to ultimate happiness. I will only 
add, that the notions expressed in Scripture : that 
God deals arbitrarily in meting out rewards and 
punishments, are simply accommodations to still 
prevailing anthropopathic prejudices ! 

The views here advocated, differ materially 
from the orthodox creed, which teaches the sin- 
gular and somewhat incredible doctrines, that 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 75 

the ancestors of the human race, having sinned, 
God — who had made them susceptible of sin, was 
highly displeased, though he could not but have 
foreseen their disobedience, and — in defiance of 
every principle that may be supposed inherent in 
the Creator, he determined that the bad conse- 
quences of their guilt, should pass over to all com- 
ing generations; that, thus, the imputation of 
original sin, worked the damnation of the entire 
human race ; that — to be saved from so terrible a 
calamity, God, many ages afterwards, sent Jesus 
Christ into the world, who — it seems, had no 
other means to effect a cure of so widely-spread, 
and dire a disease, but his death ; and that, ac- 
cordingly, he died, but, lo, after all his pains and 
humiliations, onlv a small fraction of mankind 
are saved : one in a score, a hundred, a thou- 
sand, according to Calvinistic and other allied 
creeds ! 

If, finally, at this stage of the inquiry, we take 
a glimpse at the grotesque orthodox hell, the 
scene is appalling and calculated utterly to amaze 
us. Here we behold innumerable souls in tor- 
ment, all crying and writhing for pain, or wail- 
ing and raving in despair, with here and there 
not a few pleading for mercy : God looks on, en- 
joying the agony, dismay, and lamentations of 
his poor, hapless children. Alas, he has no 
bowels of compassion ! The fires keep on raging; 
the devils to laugh and mock at their deluded 



76 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

dupes; and the God, whose goodness is infinite, 
sits by and nods approval ! Oh, what astound- 
ing abuse of the goodness and long-suffering of 
the Almighty ! What insane hallucination ! What 
devilish tragedy devised under pretence of a sav- 
ing orthodox faith ! Is there no police in osten- 
sibly Christian countries, set to watch over the 
interests of virtue, and the sanctity of religion, 
that the propagators of so atrocious a blasphemy 
against God, and foul insult of man, may be eon- 
dignly punished for their unparalleled presump- 
tion and barefaced audacity? " For shame, drop 
the curtain," cries the friend of humanity and 
the believer in God — the heavenly Father ! 

A creed of a true faith may be now briefly 
formulated from a reference to the foregoing 
thesis : God is just and good; he never punishes 
the innocent for the guilty; he rewards the good 
to bless and excite them to virtue; and he pun- 
ishes solely, and on ethic principles only, for the 
sake of reformation, growth in virtue, and the 
attainment of happiness ! 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 77 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Apostle St. Thomas, the Bereans, King Agrippa, and 
Pontius Pilate, or the Way how True Eeligious Convic- 
tion should be attained. 

PARAGRAPH I. 

The Apostle St. Thomas. 

In the Gospel according to St. John, 20. 24- 
29, inclusively, we find a very interesting and in- 
structive description of the conduct of the apostle 
St. Thomas in respect to the grounds, or sufficient 
evidence of faith. The first time that Jesus, after 
his resurrection, appeared to his disciples : the 
narrative states, St. Thomas was absent, and — of 
course, could not judge from personal inspection, 
whether the person, claiming to be Jesus, on that 
occasion, was Jesus or not, or whether — in fact, 
there had been any extraordinary appearance in 
the semblance of Jesus, at all. 

When, therefore, the news of the event reached 
him, he peremptorily declared, as we are further 
informed, that he should continue to persist in 
his refusal to give credit to the report, unless 
facts, directly appealing to his conviction, would 
satisfy his judgment; for — says the scrupulous 
and honest searcher after truth, " Except I shall 



78 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

see in his hands the print of the nails, and put 
my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust 
my hand into his side, I will not believe." 

This Christian disciple — considering the age 
in which he lived, and the nature of his social 
surroundings, was certainly a very extraordinary 
man, being evidently a close and fearless thinker, 
and the only follower of Christ of any note — as 
far as is known, who had formed any accurate 
idea of our duty, nicely and conscientiously to 
ponder and sift the proofs which are to decide 
our judgment in favor of faith : he moves — as is 
eminently proper, deliberately and reflectingly 
in the important matter; he uses his God-given 
reason ; and he is at once too God-fearing as well 
as too profoundly appreciative of human worth 
and dignity, to believe blindly, and thus burden 
his soul with the sin and shame of infidelity of 
duty. Hence, rather than to believe erroneous, 
he will not believe at all, let people say what they 
might, and slander him as much as their baseness 
and folly should dictate, his faith was a concern 
solelv between his conscience and his God ! 

Jesus once more favors his disciples with his 
sacred presence, and this time our wary Apostle 
constitutes one of the novel assembly. Jesus 
aware — it seems, of Thomas' incredulity, bids 
him " reach hither thy finger, and behold my 
hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it 
into my side : and be not faithless, but believing." 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 79 

Thomas complies with the behest of his Lord; is 
satisfied ; and believes ! What a splendid example 
of rational search after truth, and striking instance 
of the use of inductive evidence in behoof of faith. 

What is very remarkable in this interview be- 
tween Christ and Thomas, and must here, by no 
means, be passed over in silence, is the pressing 
request of Christ that Thomas should put his 
Master to the test of a close ocular and tangible 
scrutiny, and then — sufficient evidence appearing, 
believe ; not believe, no matter whether he might 
be convinced or not ; or whether the case in ques- 
tion, was true or false ! Do you hear this, and 
will you lay it to heart, ye wicked teachers of 
a blind faith ? Ye robbers of the rights of con- 
science ! Pause, I pray you; repent; and let 
your faith be born again : it much needs a second 
birth — the birth anothen, that is, the birth from 
above ; the birth, in short, that has a little reason 
and common sense ! 

PARAGRAPH II. 

The Bereans. 

The interesting passage of Scripture, upon 
which the concise argument of the present para- 
graph, will rest, occurs in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, 17. 10-12. Though its contents is limited, 
its import is no less weighty than it is novel and 
commendable. A brief analysis will set it in its 
true light, and point out its proper bearing. 



80 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

Berea — the name of a Grecian city in Mace- 
donia, was situated on the Gulf of Thessalonica, 
known at present as the Gulf of Saloniki, and 
contained — it appears, a numerous population of 
Jews. Of these descendants of the " Father of 
the Faithful," it is said that " they were more 
noble than the Jews in Thessalonica." The su- 
perior nobility here referred to with implied 
praise of its possessors, relates — according to 
Clarke, the learned commentator, rather to dis- 
position and conduct than to birth, or extraction ; 
for says this writer, " It was a maxim among 
the Jews, that none was of a noble spirit, w T ho 
did not employ himself in the study of the law." 

These Berean Jews — thus distinguished for 
their excellent character, were not like their breth- 
ren in Thessalonica: an ignorant, self-conceited, 
persecuting set of fanatics ; but, on the contrary, 
liberal-minded, reasonable men, ready to listen 
to the momentous tidings, which Paul and Silas, 
in the name of Christ, had come to announce to 
them, and fully resolved that — if after a thor- 
ough investigation and study of the subject, they 
should prove true, they would, without hesitation, 
embrace them, however antagonistic to the gen- 
erally imbibed Jewish notions, they might prove 
to be. For these evidently better educated and 
more polished people were as circumspect as they 
were self-reliant and free from groveling preju- 
dices, seeking only the truth in the final arrange- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP, gl 

merit of their religious creed. As a preliminary 
in this sensible scheme, they, therefore, " re- 
ceived the word" — the message of these Christian 
missionaries, "with all readiness of mind :" they 
deserved the epithet noble indeed ! 

This admirable readiness on the part of the Be- 
rean Jews to hear the Gospel, is not only proof of 
a praiseworthy liberality of sentiment, but it also 
honorably distinguished them from the generality 
of their bigoted and infatuated countrymen, who 
— having crucified the venerable Founder of Chris- 
tianity, persisted in their narrow-mindedness and 
hatred against him, by " breathing out threaten- 
ing^ and slaughter against the disciples of the 
Lord." But simply hearing what these men had 
come to declare to them, was not enough for 
these thoughtful and honest inquirers after truth. 
The doctrines which they set forth, might be true, 
and they might also be false ! The preachers re- 
ferred their hearers to the Scriptures for proof of 
their veracity. To the Scriptures, therefore, these 
sensible and judicious citizens resorted; for, says 
the text, they " searched the Scriptures daily, 
whether those things were so;" that is — accord- 
ing to the commentator noticed above, " whether 
the promises and types corresponded with the 
alleged fulfillment in the person, works, and suf- 
ferings of Jesus Christ." — It is only further ne- 
cessary here to acid, that the Scriptures mentioned 
in this connection, mean the Old Testament : the 



82 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

only written Scriptures, which then composed 
the Bible. These were the Scriptures, which 
these worthy people searched ; studied ; laid to 
heart, and the result was that " many of them 
believed." 

As to the legitimacy of the issue at which these 
sensible and candid Bereans arrived in their dil- 
igent, and honest researches, or whether it w T as 
based upon correct or false principles of inter- 
pretation, I leave for others to determine. My 
business with them is confined to their conduct 
or care, in ascertaining whether the new creed, 
which Paul and his associate propounded to them, 
was true ; in laying the foundation of their faith 
not on hearsay, but on personal investigation ; 
conscientious conviction ; and, hence, in logical 
inference! Hail, all hail, the noble Bereans: 
patterns to Christian creed-makers, in all time 
to come ! 

PARAGRAPH III. 

King Agrippa. 

The disquisition which will be attempted under 
this heading, is based upon the twenty-fifth and 
twenty-sixth chapters of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, with particular reference however, to the 
twenty-eighth verse of the latter of those chap- 
ters. 

The apostle Paul — having given violent offence 
to the Jews by his strenuous zeal and indefatiga- 
ble exertions in the work of Christianizing man- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 83 

kind, " the high priest, and the chief of the Jews," 
preferred an accusation against him before Festus, 
the governor of Judaea. But when " the accusers 
stood up" — in presence of the august tribunal, 
they brought no such accusations as the governor 
had been led to expect, but — on the contrary, 
" had" — as he says, " certain questions against 
him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, 
which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive," 
&c. 

"While these religious squabbles and antitheses 
of belief took place between the advocates of the 
Gospel and the Levitical ritual, King Agrippa 
paid his excellency, the governor, a visit, and 
the polite Roman — to flatter his royal guest, 
had the accused brought before him, that — hav- 
ing been examined by him, he might have 
" somewhat to write ;" " for said he," " it seem- 
eth to me unreasonable to send a prisoner, 
and not withal to signify the crimes laid against 
him." 

A more particular though brief notice of King 
Agrippa, is necessary here, to set the further de- 
tails of the subject under discussion, in their 
proper light and true significance. — King Agrippa 
was the son of Herod Agrippa, a descendant of 
Herod the Great, and was, therefore, of Idumean 
lineage ; but though alien in blood, he was Jew- 
ish in religion, " the Idumeans having been 
conquered and converted to Judaism by John 



84 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

Hyrcanus 130 B.C."* — At the time of which this 
article treats, Agrippa was ruler over the prov- 
inces Gaulonites, Trachonites, Batanea, Pancas, 
Abilene, &c, and, besides, could boast that he 
enjoyed in a marked degree, the smiles of the 
imperial court. 

Such, in a few words, was the distinguished 
person, before whom, the Apostle argued his 
cause both at considerable length, and with ap- 
parently great animation and emphasis. It is 
the substance only, however, of this notable de- 
fence, which Avill here be laid before the reader, 
from which he may judge of its cogency, or dis- 
cover the causes of its result. 

The Apostle begins his defence by stating, 
that he thought himself happy to know that his 
majesty " was expert in all the customs and ques- 
tions among the Jew T s," implying hence that he 
might safely rely upon an equitable decision of 
his case. He then mentions that he had been 
formerly a strictly orthodox Jew, and inferior to 
none of his nation in his profound devotion to 
the Jewish faith ; that he had even carried his 
fidelity to the old creed so far as — at last, to be- 
come a cruel and relentless persecutor of the 
Christian sect; that, finally, on a journey to Da- 
mascus, he saw the Lord in a resplendent vision ; 
was sharply rebuked by him for his ill-treatment 

* Chambers's Encyclopaedia. 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. £5 

of his inoffensive followers ; and that — in conclu- 
sion, he was formally installed in the office of 
" a minister and a witness," in behoof of the 
demands and interests of Christianity. Thus 
clothed with the authority of an apostle and 
minister of Christ, he did all in his power to 
disseminate the principles of the Gospel, demon- 
strating that the Messianic prophecies were all 
fulfilled in Christ, and that the Jews ought, 
therefore, to acknowledge and honor him as 
their Lord and Savior. They, on the other hand, 
peremptorily denied the truth and relevancy of 
his argument ; fiercely denounced him as an im- 
postor and an infidel; and the former persecutor 
was now in his turn persecuted. Of course, he 
persisted in asserting his innocence and the jus- 
tice of his cause, declaring, " I am judged for 
the hope of the promise made of .God unto our 
fathers." 

Having thus set the case in question, in its true 
light, before his royal auditor, he boldly asks 
him, " Believest thou the prophets ? and confi- 
dently adds : I know that thou believest." Then 
the king — we are told, said to Paul, " Almost 
thou persuadest me to be a Christian" ! 

In this well-arranged and carefully digested 
speech, the apostle does not reason, but simply 
narrates ; he, therefore, passes over all the for- 
mulas of logic, usually employed in maintaining 
a proposition, and tacitly demands that every - 

8 



86 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

thing which lie has said or affirmed, should be 
implicitly taken for granted. And yet — strange 
as it may seem, the king is " almost persuaded to 
be a Christian." Persuasion is ordinarily founded 
on reasoning : on inference, based on premises, 
which have axiomatic evidence; yet — in the 
absence of all this dialectic method of making 
out a vera causa, or true case, Paul — though 
simply appealing to historic data, comes very near 
to carry conviction to the royal breast. Was the 
king, perhaps, credulous ? No ; for, though 
" almost persuaded," he was not quite persuaded: 
he virtually asked for proof, or a more forcible 
argument ! and would not yield assent till it 
should have been given. Hence — as far as is 
known, he never: for want of satisfactory evi- 
dence, it is to be presumed, became a proselyte 
to the new faith. It is in view of this cautious, 
scrutinizing trait in the character of this man 
that he justly endears himself to the honest, sober 
seeker after truth, who will not stir in predicating 
a faith, till he has good grounds for doing so. 
Like St. Thomas, this distinguished ruler pre- 
ferred obstinately to persist in unbelief, rather 
than — in his judgment, which might indeed be 
erroneous, to yield to seeming, or caprice, and 
call it faith, or honesty of the religious sentiment. 
King Agrippa, then, affords another bright ex- 
ample of a man, who wisely and dutifully builds 
his religious convictions upon a solid foundation, 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. $7 

and who will, consequently, be blessed of God, 
as every honest man, " the noblest work of God," 
ever will be ! 

PARAGRAPH IV. 
Pontius Pilate. 

The thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth verses of 
the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel, according 
to John, furnish the subject, and indicate the 
task, to wdiich the present paragraph is devoted. 
In the first of these verses — standing out in bold 
relief, and challenging a concise scrutiny, Jesus 
is represented as sajing, that he was born, and 
came into the world, that he " should bear wit- 
ness unto the truth." Pontius Pilate — at the 
time governor of Judaea, before whose dread tri- 
bunal, Jesus had been arraigned, struck at this 
extraordinary announcement, immediately asked 
him, " What is truth ?" The venerable person- 
age — thus interrogated, contrary to what, it seems, 
might reasonably have been expected, made no 
reply, and the governor had to go away unsatis- 
fied. What a pity that such should have been 
the case ! What a detriment — I venture to add, 
to the world ! 

The truth, here alluded to, was decidedly of a 
religious nature; concerning the deeply-rooted 
religious sentiment of mankind ; and included, 
in its practical import, the postulating of the re- 
ligious creed and cultus, or the observance of 



88 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

Divine worship in its widest and most exhaustive 
sense. If Jesus had left an authentic statement 
on record of what he deemed truth, in religion, 
and — of course, sound and genuine in devotion, 
how exceedingly glad and thankful all friends of 
truth generally, and of religious truths in par- 
ticular, would have been, and how very different, 
I have no doubt, would be the belief as well as 
the spiritual state of the Christian Church, from 
what, alas, it now is ! How strange too it is, that 
Jesus — having been especially charged : on his 
own showing, with the exalted mission " to bear 
witness unto the truth," should forbear to make 
use of his sacred prerogative, or — in other words, 
to comply with a duty which he recognized as 
pre-eminently and solely confided to him, and 
plainly tell the distinguished functionary, who — 
I take it for granted, made the present inquiry in 
good faith : not playfully or in mockery, as some 
think. Why should not an educated and intelli- 
gent heathen be truth-seeking as well as any 
other person of a reflecting habit? This omis- 
sion — to respond to the interrogation, " What is 
truth/' is utterly inexplicable, and must be for 
ever deplored as the grand, unsolved desidera- 
tum ! 

Truth — according to Webster, is " conformity 
to fact or reality; exact accordance with that 
which is, or has been, or shall be/' &c. This 
definition embraces geometry, or the science of 



HONESTF IX OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 89 

magnitude, which is susceptible of exact demon- 
stration, and which may be, therefore, weighed 
and measured, or numerically expressed. With 
this species of truth, Jesus had no immediate 
concern; for it did not fall directly within the 
sphere of his mission. Moral and spiritual truth 
alone, I conceive, claimed his attention, and 
satisfy our need. This truth too admits of proof 
or demonstration, and often as certain as a mathe- 
matical truth, only not so exact 

Christians — being required to " worship in 
spirit and in truth;" that is — waiving the He- 
brew idiom, conveyed in this phrase, in a, true 
spirit, should use their utmost endeavor to be sure 
that the result of their religious investigations, is 
based on tenable, practical principles, and that, 
accordingly, it " conforms to fact or reality;" or 
accords with the nature of things, as they are 
pointed out to us in the works and ways of the 
Creator. Hence experience ; observation ; evi- 
dence ; instinct — including the affections and an- 
tipathies of the soul; the mode of ratiocination, 
common among mankind ; the hopes and aspira- 
tions, more or less, animating every breast, &c, 
are to be accounted so many sources of reference ; 
so many indices, pointing out and verifying the 
method after which a true, God-approved, and 
saving religion, should be elaborated and per- 
petuated ! 

Pontius Pilate — though a heathen : the hack- 



90 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

neyed synonym among some people, who happen 
to he superlatively wise in their own conceit, 
of all that is low and vile, and stupid, among 
men, took some interest in truth — a thing not 
largely participated in by the majority of Chris- 
tians, and, hence, he asked Jesus to explain it, 
having been encouraged to do so, no doubt, be- 
cause the former had positively declared that — 
as has been already intimated, he had particularly 
and exclusively come upon the earth ; that is, as- 
sumed the office of a Divinely appointed teacher 
and guide of mankind, or — in other words, " to 
bear witness to the truth." I will only add, that 
— though our inquiry after truth may not be 
always successful, or answered affirmatively, it is 
far better to seek after this bright and lovely 
jewel : more precious than gold, ay, more to be 
desired than even life itself, and to be disappointed 
in the search, than criminally to neglect or despise 
it. Ay, what is truth ? Let the solution of this 
transcendent problem, be the constant, holiest 
effort of my life ! 



HON EST F IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 91 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Innocence of Little Children. 

The following are the salient Scripture-texts, 
which constitute the basis of the present argu- 
ment: Matthew, 18. 1-4; 19. 13-15; Mark, 10. 13- 
16 ; and Luke, 18. 15-17. The contents, of which 
they are composed, are naturally divisible into 
two parts; the one appertaining to the children, 
the other to the adults of which they treat : par- 
ties, between whom is a striking contrast, both 
in a psychical and moral point of view, and who, 
consequently, give occasion for the inculcation of 
important truths. 

The reputation of Jesus — at this time, as a 
famous rabbi, and eminent reformer, must have 
been extensive, and have excited a good deal of 
attention, whence the inference was naturally 
arrived at, that — as he seemed to be an extraor- 
dinary person, he must be endowed with an ex- 
traordinary measure of grace. Who, then, was 
better suited to impart blessings than he ? They, 
therefore, no doubt, not only believed in him 
themselves, and expected to be blessed through 
his agency, but — actuated by a spirit of consist- 



92 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

ency, brought their children to him, that they 
also : as well as themselves, might be blessed. 
They were not disappointed; for — according to 
Mark, he did " bless them," and thus graciously 
complied with their ardent wishes, expressed in 
Matthew, by the phrase " that he would put his 
hands on them and pray," and in Luke, by the 
naive prayer, " that he would touch them." 

The disciples — it. may be presumed, thinking 
that the demands of the kingdom of heaven were 
of too grave and urgent a character unnecessarily 
to allow meddling with affairs which might be, 
with greater propriety, confined to the nursery, 
objected to so unwarrantable an interruption of 
their Master in his arduous work, and, accord- 
ingly, resisted the attempt. Noticing their con- 
duct, Jesus at once interposed, saying: " Suffer 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not : for of such is the kingdom of God." Such 
is a brief version of the interesting and pathetic 
scene, as it is described by Mark and Luke; with 
which Matthew substantially agrees, while his 
manner of stating it, varies a trifle from that of 
his evangelical compeers. 

What first solicits our attention here, is that 
the children, brought to Jesus, are so greatly ex- 
tolled by him for the innocence; the goodness; 
in short, the moral excellence of their nature. 
They are unhesitatingly represented by the Savior 
as the emphatically normal types of human fit- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 93 

ness for the kingdom of heaven. Such, in fact, 
we are led to infer, was their adaptedness for 
citizenship in that spiritual commonwealth, that 
the august founder of it, found nothing in their 
spiritual condition that needed to be changed, to 
enable them to enjoy its blessings, and to be for 
ever happy in it. He does not lament that he 
cannot do them all the good he would like to do 
them, because they are so corrupt on account of 
Adam's sin, or debased by inherited moral im- 
purity. Nor does he say that they must be first 
purged from this dire and deadly stain, by the 
rite of baptism, and be thus born, again, before he 
could do anything for their happiness, or bless 
them ! No, he finds them already pure, and 
tacitly declares that all they need is Gospel- 
tuition, to entitle them to a full participation of 
Gospel-blessings, for which he unreservedly de- 
clares them to be pre-eminently qualified, as has 
been stated above.* 

The Jews — as is well known, observed the rite 
of circumcision, and laid most stress upon its 
importance as a Levitical, or ritualistic practice, 
but it was primarily, no doubt, simply a sanitary 
institution, suggested by a torrid climate, or, per- 



* How different from this Gospel-teaching is, for example, 
that of the Augsburg Confession, which treating of baptism, 
says: "It ought also to be administered to children, who 
.are thereby dedicated to God, and received into his favor /" 



94 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

haps, by a structural abnormity. One thing, at 
least, is undeniable, that the Old Testament 
view of human nature, or theory of anthropology, 
knows absolutely nothing of original sin, imputed 
to the human race ! The Jewish children were, 
therefore, considered clean from their birth ; 
clean without dipping, or sprinkling, or any other 
mode of soul-purification. A case, recorded in 
the twelfth chapter of the Second Book of Samuel, 
will further illustrate as well as justify the posi- 
tion here laid down : David, the celebrated king 
of the Jews, lost a child, that claimed for his 
mother the famous Bathsheba — once the wife of 
a brave but ill-fated soldier in the royal army. 
The father — as we read, was inconsolable while 
the child was sick, and gave vent to his intense 
grief by " fasting and weeping;" for, said the 
stricken parent, when he was interrogated about 
the diversity of his conduct during the sickness, 
and after the death of the child, I thought, " Who 
can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that 
the child may live ? But now he is dead, where- 
fore should I fast ? can I bring him back again ? 
I shall go to him, but he shall not return to 
me" ! 

Here we do not find the least hint or reference 
to an unfitness of the dead child for happiness in 
a future state : no thought — at least not expressed, 
of Adam's sin, or of soul-corruption in conse- 
quence of it. The bereaved father — as a last 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 95 

hope, and a final triumph over all his sufferings, 
cherishes the comfortable and indomitable as- 
surance : " I shall go to him" ! Would the king 
have sought consolation in going to his child, if 
he had believed that it was in a bad place, which 
would have been the case, according to received 
orthodox notions, if it had died, being vitiated 
by hereditary sin, and departed hence without 
redemption ? No ! The " chosen people" knew 
nothing — at least the Old Testament knows no- 
thing, of the monstrous dogma of the imputation 
of sin. What right, then, have Christians to foist 
this false and ridiculous tenet upon the Church of 
Christ, and by systematic misrepresentations of 
facts, pervert and corrupt and stultify the souls of 
unsophisticated believers ?* 

The innocence and moral purity of little chil- 
dren — also called young children in the text, ap- 
pears further from the circumstance, that they 
are emphatically held up to the. disciples of Christ, 
as typical of sound Christian principles, and who 



* The custom of orthodox commentators, to point to the fifth 
verse of the fifty-first Psalm, as a proof-text for the verification 
of the fiction, called the imputation or inheritance of original 
sin, is too absurd any longer to gain credence except among 
fanatics and the mentally imbecile. All that the writer of that 
lyric teaches in the passage referred to, is, that man is sinful, 
and, of course, inherits this attribute as a part of his nature, 
not as a visitation due to another's guilt : it is but a necessary 
concomitant of free-agency ! 



96 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

deserve, therefore, to be carefully imitated, espe- 
cially in the incipient stages of the Christian 
life. Accordingly we read : " Except ye be con- 
verted" — straphete: changed in mind, according 
to Parkhurst, " and become as little children, ye 
shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," ad- 
dressing himself to some of his aspiring disci- 
ples, who — it seems, thought more of self-aggran- 
dizement in following Christ, than of living 
uprightly and making themselves useful to their 
fellow-beings : they were proud, selfish ; they 
must become humble, docile, unselfish and un- 
worldly, if they would be genuine believers. In 
short, they must put themselves into the self- 
denying attitude of confiding, tractable, and obe- 
dient pupils. " As a little child," they must " re- 
ceive the kingdom of God," if they would have 
any share or fellowship in it ! Thus we see, that 
little children are demonstrably unsullied by ex- 
traneous or vicarious guilt, and bear to-day — 
as did the first man, in the morning of creation, 
the image of God, and the seal of Divinity in their 
souls ! 

The inquiry now naturally presents itself, why 
do Christians still consider little children — in the 
face of the foregoing salient facts, polluted by 
Adam's sin, and believe that if they are not bap- 
tized they are not in favor with God, or are lost? 
Is it possible that people — pretending to sound- 
ness of faith, and to be especially worthy of the 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 97 

Christian name, can be still so blind; so little 
read in the Scriptures, as to believe in the dam- 
nation of unbaptized children ! Such lamenta- 
ble incongruity of views with facts, could not 
take place if — as the Apostle enjoins, Christians 
would " prove all things :" appertaining to their 
creed, and hold fast only " that which is good ;" 
that is, reasonable, true, and conformable with 
common sense ! 

The dogma that " in Adam's fall, we sinned 
all," and based among other texts, upon an erro- 
neous exegesis of Titus, 3. 5, is further proved to 
be inadmissible, because soul-corruption cannot 
have taken place by the imputation of Adam's, 
as no such person — as is clear to every intelli- 
gent mind, has ever existed, or at least not as the 
progenitor of mankind. By the phrase " the 
washing of regeneration and renewing of the 
Holy Ghost," in that passage, reference is simply 
made to the Jewish custom of baptizing heathen 
proselytes after they had embraced their faith, 
and, of course, renounced their former religious 
connections : this change of sentiment, and sym- 
bol of purity of purpose, they called the new-birth,, 
or renewing of the Holy Ghost ! 

A similar new-birth, or change of religious 
opinion, as a preliminary formula in Christian 
conversion, Christ requires of his followers, as 
may be seen in the Gospel according to John, 3. 
3, 5. In neither case, however, was corruption, 

9 



98 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

in consequence of imputed sin, premised : the 
idea was foreign to Jewish belief, which is plainly 
and emphatically expressed by the prophet 
Ezekiel, when he peremptorily asserts that "the 
soul that sinneth, it shall die" ! 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 99 



CITAPTEB X. 

Religion — a Constituent, or Element of the Human Constitu- 
tion. 

The exalted religious sentiment is inherent in 
human nature, and cannot, therefore, be ignored. 
Nor can it be neglected or treated lightly, with- 
out serious and lasting detriment to the health 
and peace of mind. This inference is self-evi- 
dent and should command our serious attention; 
for — if the religious sentiment is an original en- 
dowment, derived directly from the Creator, it 
must be the will of the Creator that it should be 
carefully cultivated and made a chief power in 
practical life, otherwise : it is evident, the impor- 
tant gift would be useless, and its bestowal in 
vain. 

Being thus a primordial element in the human 
constitution, religion is as old as man himself, 
and there has, accordingly, never existed a 
people : or even individual of sound mind, that 
has not had some belief, or that did not observe 
some kind of religious worship. Hence fetichism, 
polytheism, theism, have successively marked the 
religious history, and illustrated the tendency and 



100 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

progress of the religious development of man- 
kind. As may readily be supposed, this grand 
attribute of the soul did not always take an up- 
ward direction, nor had it always an entirely 
reasonable inception, however well-meant might 
be its design; for, like man himself, it has its in- 
fancy and its pupilage, and needs — as its manifes- 
tations in different ages as well as among all 
nations of the world, amply testify, frequent re- 
vision and often extensive reforms, to adapt it to 
the demands of advanced intelligence, and the 
reasonable insinuations of an increasingly-awak- 
ing and more accurately appreciative conscience. 
In short, the religious sentiment — though God- 
given, is: properly speaking, only a constitutional 
susceptibility of the human race. It has latent ca- 
pacities, but to make them available in the soul's 
highest interests, they must.be diligently devel- 
oped ; be educated ; be perfected ; just like the 
rest of the human faculties : more fitly — I con- 
ceive, denominated soul-capabilities. 

Religion — as we have seen, beino; thus natural 
to every person, is, therefore, necessary to every 
person. And while it continues to be the com- 
mon birthright of all men, recognizing in each 
individual the inalienable right of a free expres- 
sion of itself, and is, consequently, at once toler- 
ant and pacific as well as a blessing and an honor 
to its possessors, theology is notoriously apt to be 
encroaching, dictating, and even persecuting, 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. \Q\ 

claiming — contrary to an innate diversity of the 
human mind, conformity of all men to a common 
creed, and hurling anathemas against all dissen- 
ters and independent thinkers. Religion is essen- 
tial to man's integrity, and always — while it holds 
to the enjoyment of equal rights, a blessing. On 
the contrary, theology is not necessary to human 
welfare; is often, as we have seen, mischievous 
and overbearing in its tendency; and can well, 
therefore, be dispensed with. 

In his " History of Civilization in England/' 
Buckle thus lucidly as well as concisely, de- 
scribes the difference between religion and the- 
ology : " Religion," he writes, " is to each in- 
dividual according to the inward light with which 
he is endowed. In different characters, there- 
fore, it assumes different forms, and can never be 
reduced to one common and arbitrary rule. 
Theology, on the other hand, claiming authority 
over all minds, and refusing to recognize their 
essential divergence, seeks to compel them to a 
single creed, and sets up one standard of absolute 
truth, by which it tests every one's opinions ; pre- 
sumptuously condemning those who disagree 
with that standard," &c. 

The religious element in the human constitu- 
tion, being — as I have shown, a gift of the Crea- 
tor, it cannot ordinarily be difficult for man to 
detect undoubted traces of the existence and 
character of him, who has already thus im- 

9* 



102 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

pressed the clear insignia of his being and will 
upon our souls. How delighted and thankful 
man should be, to be thus able to know and to 
worship a Supreme Being; a being that tenderly 
cares for him, and who — having endowed him 
with this transcendent faculty, tacitly bids him 
to live conformably to it, and to be happy. On 
the contrary, how dreary and dismal must be the 
life of the unfortunate person, who denies that 
there is a God, and, hence, lives in the world 
without the sweet solace of having a heavenly 
Father to go to, to love, to adore ! Oh, the atheist 
must be wretched indeed, and I cannot, there- 
fore, think that any person can be atheistic from 
choice, or as the result of a healthy ratiocination. 
No. It cannot — in such case, depend simply on 
man's will, whether he will recognize a God or 
not, but must be owing to some mental abnor- 
mity. Let us, therefore, not insolently judge, or 
rudely condemn him : he is eminently an object 
of pity, forbearance, and the largest charity. He 
cannot help that he is orphaned from God. It is 
a sad idiosyncrasy of the soul, and God alone can 
explain it, as he alone has the right to deal 
with it ! 

As religion and faith are often confounded, an 
attempt at discrimination between them, may not 
be inappropriate here. Religion I, therefore, re- 
mark, is solely based upon personal conviction, 
founded upon reasons, deemed sufficiently satis- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. ]()3 

factory, to warrant assent : it is the result entirely 
of personal spontaneity and research. Faith, on 
the other hand, is referred to the testimony of a 
witness. If such testimony is considered suffi- 
ciently convincing, it is approved and accepted, 
whether it relates to a more or less ample relig- 
ious creed, or even only to a single dogma of 
faith. This definition of faith and religion is, I 
think, plainly enough laid down to enable any 
one readily to distinguish between them, but it is 
not to be inferred from it, that religion rests al- 
ways upon irrefragable truth, nor that faith is not, 
in many instances, I am sorry to say it, a mere 
credulity, and, therefore, received on bare credit, 
hearsay, or authority ! Such faith cannot escape 
the condemnation, of an insulted God ! 

Divine worship : in other words, the worship 
of deity, or what was supposed to be such, is as 
old as the first outward expression of the " organ 
of veneration," or the religious principle in- 
herent in the human race. For man — sensible 
of his impotence and comparative helplessness, 
and finding little aid or redress among his kind, 
is only too glad in his many necessities not to 
lean upon a power greater than himself; that — 
at length, during the more advanced stages of 
the religious sentiment, he recognizes as God — 
in an exalted sense of the term, at once acknowl- 
edging and adoring him as the omnipotent crea- 
tor and preserver of all things. His worship is 



104 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

at first sensuous and groveling, but as it advances 
in its growth, it gradually attains to spirituality. 
Formerly, it needed, or, at least, sanctioned the 
priestly office and intercessors, but in process of 
time, every worshiper learned to address himself 
personally or directly to the hallowed object of 
his devotion. Sacrifices of beasts ceased, and 
man gave his heart to God; the altar-flame now 
no longer wafts "a sweet savor" toward heaven, 
and, in place of it, man — in the pleasing exercise 
of the sublime duties of piety and godliness, 
presents his body and soul a living and more ex- 
cellent waive-oftering to the God, who has made 
him ! 

False notions of Divine worship are still ex- 
tensively prevalent among worshipers, even or- 
thodox Christians not excepted, and need a con- 
cise notice in this place, that they may be not 
only laid bare, but appropriate suggestions made 
for their correction. Many people seem to think 
that God could hardly get along in a comfortable 
way without their Divine service; that they do 
him a special favor by regularly going to church, 
singing hymns, reciting the creed, and invoking 
his name. Poor, deluded souls ! what precious 
thing have you that you could give or offer to 
God, that he has not much better and more 
amply already ? Learn, then, fellow-Christians, 
that in worshiping God, you do yourselves the 
greatest service ; that what you call Divine ser- 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 105 

vice, is really the worshipers' service ; a service to 
benefit and ennoble man ; to make him wiser, 
better, more useful, and — of course, more self-re- 
spected as well as more happy. God : it is clear, 
does not need man's gifts ; for if they are good, 
it is he that has bestowed them, and if they are 
evil, he, who is infinite goodness, could not accept 
them ! 

From the view that has been here taken of 
the subject, it is, by no means, to be inferred 
that God is indifferent to Divine worship, or 
leaves it optional with us to worship him or not. 
0, no ! For, having imbued man with the ines- 
timable religious principle, he wants him dili- 
gently, nay, devoutly to heed it, and hence, of 
course, carefully to develop it; which it is impos- 
sible to do without manifesting itself in the ob- 
servance of Divine worship and the devout 
aspirations of the soul. Nay, he is just as much 
under obligation to worship his Maker, as he is 
to do justly and to walk humbly in his sight ;but 
it is for his own benefit, his own honor, his own 
welfare, that he is to worship God : he goes to 
him poor, and he leaves him rich ! 

Moreover, to worship God in concert, public 
worship or ritualism, is to be resorted to only as 
a means, not as an end, as has been already inti- 
mated, and, therefore, it should be eminently 
reasonable ; based on true principles of the soul's 
needs ; and only employed to prepare the wor- 



106 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

shiper for an improved life in God, or the prac- 
tice of virtue in its important bearing upon the 
various ardent duties and complex relations of 
our present existence. It is perfectly clear, there- 
fore, that ceremonial worship is useful only in 
furthering the end of the precious and univer- 
sally obligatory religious sentiment, and in thus 
educating man — more and more, in conformity 
to the Divine will, and the inevitable conditions 
of his destiny. In short, more the child of God, 
and his life the reflection of the Divinity upon 
earth ! Do we worship for such an end, when 
we go to the house of God f Let us not trifle, I 
beseech you, either with God or with ourselves : 
if our worship is a delusion, all our religious pre- 
tensions are false, and can end only in shame and 
ruined souls ! Ay, reader, " Virtue only makes 
our bliss below" ! — Pope. 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 107 



CHAPTER XL 

True Faith in its "Widest Practical Significance. 

Orthodox theology teaches that man — being 
radically corrupt in consequence of Adam's sin, 
is neither good himself, nor able of his own en- 
deavor, to do what is good, and that hence, 
whatever good he possesses, is a gift of God, su- 
pernaturally conferred upon him. Faith is one 
of these extraordinary graces, or super-human 
provisions, intended by God to insure our salva- 
tion ! This doctrine — thus set forth, is totally 
incredible and false. — First, it is totally incredi- 
ble in its relation to God. For man : being 
thus exclusively dependent upon God for the 
supernatural gift of faith, can be saved only in 
case it pleases his Maker to bestow it upon him. 
Whence it incontrovertibly follows, that all that 
are lost — according to the orthodox creeds, are 
lost for want of the timely bestowal of this bless- 
ing : the sine qua non of salvation, and that the 
blame must, consequently, be charged to the 
neglect, the oversight, or the arbitrary decision 
of God ! Can a doctrine that involves so blas- 
phemous an alternative, presume upon further 



108 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

credence among mankind ? I hope to God, that 
this stupendous and infamous falsehood, will soon, 
very soon, pass into oblivion's profoundest abyss ! 

The doctrine that the acquisition of faith, is 
not in the power of man — corrupted by alien or 
imputed sin, but is conferred as a gratuity or 
favor, by God, is totally false, second, in its rela- 
tion to man. — Man is not corrupt, and, therefore, 
not powerless in the attainment of faith ; for the 
Adam of orthodox significance, either never ex- 
isted — as I have proved in several of my former 
Publications as well as in a previous chapter of 
the present Essay, or if he did, he cannot have 
been the progenitor of mankind, as millennial 
ages prior to his assumed era, man flourished 
upon the globe. Not existing at all, he can of 
course, have corrupted or spiritually undone, no 
one, or existing, yet not existing as the putative 
father of the human race, this race cannot stand 
in a filial or blood-relation to him, and is, there- 
fore, without Adamic taint, or in a state which is 
the reverse of the original sin-creed, and, conse- 
quently, competent to help himself in all reason- 
able requirements. For — as Cicero writes : " Ni- 
hilum ex nihilo oriatur." Hence, the conclusion 
is unavoidable, that the dogma, that man cannot 
believe and be saved without supernatural aid or 
Divine interposition, is at once baseless and 
utterly false ! 

The new-birth — as it is technically called, is 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 109 

prominently taught in all the orthodox branches 
of the Christian Church, as no less vital to Chris- 
tianity than faith itself, and equally the product 
of supernatural grace. In what ordinal relation 
— in respect to time, these miraculously imparted 
components of the orthodox Christian-life, stand 
to each other, it is not clearly taught, or well 
understood. For, if man is so corrupt by in- 
heritance, that he cannot — of his own will and 
striving, believe, he must be spiritually sound or 
whole as soon as God has: in a miraculous man- 
ner, made him a believer. "What need, then, is 
there of a new-birth, in a case already provided 
for ? Or, suppose the new-birth to precede the 
bestowal of faith, then the latter need not be a 
supernatural gift, or an extra-human grace; for 
man, being now spiritually made whole again, 
andtheAdamic pollution having been thus effec- 
tually wiped out, he can sufficiently help himself 
by the use of the natural grace, which God has so 
amply and so kindly placed at his discretion. 

I have already demonstrated on more than one 
occasion, and in clear, unmistakable language, 
that the New Testament does not — at least not 
through means of its august founder, teach a 
new-birth in any sense implying the notion of 
the orthodox dogma of that phrase. It does not 
predicate an Adamic corruption, involving the 
damnation of the human race. Why then should 
such an absurd and mischievous belief be any 

10 



HO TRUTH IN RELIGION ; OR, 

longer allowed to debase and stultify the vener- 
able Christian sentiment? Suppose however 
that such an anthropological heterodoxy should 
be proclaimed in the pages of the Gospel, which 
— for the honor of Christ, I am unwilling to con- 
cede, it is now a settled question among intelli- 
gent men, impartially seeking truth, and — when 
they have found it, honestly and fearlessly avow T - 
ing it, that the theory of imputation of original- 
sin, is false and, therefore, untenable ; and that 
it can be, henceforth, interesting only as a relic of 
a dark and superstitious age ! 

The doctrine of the new T -birth, is taught more 
or less distinctly, in all the creeds of orthodox 
Christian denominations, but it does not stand 
out with equal prominence among all of them. 
Revivalism, resorted to occasionally or periodi- 
cally, is considered by many worthy believers, 
as essential to the acquisition of the new T -birth. 
Among the advocates of the doctrine of revival- 
ism : purporting a joint-effort in the use of cer- 
tain regenerative measures for the conversion of 
sinners, the phrase "to be born again," is com- 
mon, and — in fact, denominationally distinctive. 
On the other hand, there are large branches of 
the Christian Church, that are seldom heard to 
say anything about the new-birth, or to be born 
again; evidently implying a flat contradiction 
between life and theory, deed and conviction ! — 
These Christians hold that the Christian prin- 



HO NEST F IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP, m 

ciples which animate and bless parents descend 
upon their children, and imbue them with such a 
measure of the Christian spirit, that it — together 
with the subsequent additional graces or Divine 
influences, vouchsafed to them in the teaching of 
the Word of God, and the pious use of the sacra- 
ments, they will be able to " make their calling 
and election sure." Christians of this class, are 
evidently largely synergistic, and do not practically 
believe much in either a supernaturally inaugu- 
rated, or in a subsequently sustained and con- 
summated miraculous Christianitv. Thev thus 

«/ */ 

clecidedlv lean toward a common-sense view of 
the^matter, which fact may be regarded and wel- 
comed as the saving-clause of their creed ! 

It is evident, then, that reason — in its proper 
spontaneity, and logical method, is competent to 
build up a true and saving faith. And why, I 
pray, should it not be thus competent? I have 
shown — beyond a doubt, that it is still of per- 
fectly normal integrity, and can — in spite of all 
orthodox gainsay, or imperious pretension, decide 
on the cogency of the evidence : not hearsay or 
a mere ip'se dix'it, which must finally determiue 
the question of faith or no faith ! Yes — I repeat 
the query, why should reason, being sound, and 
capable of weighing the nature and claims of 
evidence, which may be adduced in behoof of it, 
not be also qualified to know what is true or false 
in the making up of a genuine, God-approving 



112 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

ftiith ? For there is — unquestionably, grace, ay, 
a heavenly and saving grace, in reason honestly 
and wisely used ! Has God not given us our 
reason ? Can he give us a bad gift? " But the 
gift," cries the conceited, false teacher, "has 
been vitiated." I deny the allegation, and chal- 
lenge the proof! I will only add here, that if 
any one should be in doubt whether his faith is 
sound or true, let him look to its effects, or the 
net sum of its working, and if it is fruitful in 
good ivorks, it will do ! 

A little more light upon the subject of grace — 
as a gift of God, may not be deemed irrelevant 
here. — Grace, as a gift of the Creator, is abso- 
lutely all in all to us ; for all that we are or have 
is, without exception, a gift, a grace of God. It 
is, therefore, emphatically and strictly literally 
true, that "in him, we live and move and have 
our being;" that Ave are thus the living monu- 
ments of his untiring and exuberant grace; of 
his Divine grace; of his saving grace : accepting 
the term in its widest and most exhaustive appli- 
cation, or as embracing and directing our whole 
being ; our whole needs ; our whole eventful and 
exalted destiny ! Yes, reader — in the language 
of St. Peter, " I rejoice with joy unspeakable," to 
be able to say that all that is, both great and 
small ; from the vast world-orbs to the tiny atom ; 
from the seraph to the animalcule, is a free-will gift 
or work of God, and — as far as it concerns man 



HONESTV IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. H3 

and other superior intelligences, a grace ; and that 
no truth is better established in natural philoso- 
phy, than that it is by this Divine grace, this 
grace of God, that — as St. Paul, in substance, 
says : " We are what we are." With appropriate 
emphasis, therefore, sings the sacred bard in the 
following pertinent strains : 

" Creation, vast as it may be, 

Is subject to thy will. 
There's not a place, where we can flee, 

But God is with us still. 
On him each moment we depend ; 

If he withdraw, we die. 
Oh, may we ne'er that God offend, 

"Who is for ever nigh !" 



10* 



114 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 



CHAPTER XII. 

God's character vindicated against Inconsistency, and a False 

Faith set right. 

If all mankind have really sinned in Adam — the 
hypothetical progenitor of the human race, then : 
according to the generally accepted creed, all 
mankind — unless they are supernaturally saved, 
must perish eternally ; for God, we are told, saves 
only that part of the human family that stands 
upon Bible-ground, by interposing miraculously 
ill their behoof, while, on the other hand, that all 
other peoples, constituting the far greater divi- 
sion of mankind, are not thus soterially cared for, 
and must, therefore, die in their sins, in conse- 
quence of the inherited Adamic pollution. This, 
in substance, is the teaching of all orthodox 
Churches on this very important subject. 

Now all teaching, whether sacred or profane, 
claiming to be true, and involving the benevo- 
lence of God, must have scrupulous regard to 
the Divine character; for if consistency in the 
life of man, is a jewel, God — the all-wise as well 
as just and good, cannot lack it, unless we predi- 
cate a Supreme Being that is inferior in moral 



HON EST V IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. H5 

excellence to man : a creator more faulty than 
the creature. It is a very grave mistake, and no 
less than a grievous wrong clone to God, which 
they commit, who affirm that the Almighty be- 
stows faith and a new-birth supernaturally on a 
part of mankind, and thus puts them in the way 
of salvation, while he lets the great majority 
shift for themselves the best they can, and then, 
finally, damns them for not having been miracu- 
lously born again ! 

This doctrine, then, of a partial providence of 
God : benefiting a part and neglecting the rest 
of his children ; helping the former to everlast- 
ing happiness, and letting sin take its course 
unhindered, and, therefore, ending in endless 
misery, among the latter, is — to say the least, an 
atrocious slander against God, and totally devoid 
of truth : explicable only, either on the supposi- 
tion of a most extraordinary hallucination, posi- 
tively maniacal in its character; or on the less 
defensible alternative, that it owes its existence 
to willful and deliberate perversion, and, hence, 
a pious falsification of the truth ! 

The real fact in the case is, that — as I have al- 
ready more than once demonstrated, there is no 
Adamic corruption at all, and, hence, the predica- 
tion of the need of a new-birth, or re-creation of 
human nature, and an extra-human origination of 
faith, is simply and radically a myth, and God, 
accordingly stands justified in his ways toward 



11(5 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR 



all men : treating them all as his children, and 
making no distinction among any of them in the 
dispensations of his blessings. The injustice and 
absurdity of ascribing such monstrous inconsis- 
tency to God in his dealings with his children : 
assuming the functions of a savior here, and 
coolly and unfeelingly looking on a ruined world 
there, will now be illustrated more in detail, and 
their extreme improbability pointed out. To the 
law, then, and to the testimonj' ! 

The very circumstance that God — according to 
orthodox teaching, suffered mankind durin°; 
myriad ages, to live at their discretion, without 
the least interference — on his part, in behalf of 
their salvation, is irrefragable proof that they 
were competent to take care of themselves, in a 
manner compatible with the Divine will, and 
their true interests: thus completely nullifying 
the dogma of a supernatural remedial spiritual 
training of the Jew and the Christian, in order 
to save them.* What, to see innumerable multi- 
tudes of human beings, all his children, perish 
around him during a long course of ages, and 
yet do nothing for them till in comparatively re- 
cent times, and then — for the first time, begin to 

* Only a minimum even of these — according to Calvinism, 
will be saved ! There is, it seems to me, positively no use of 
laying stress upon an ostensibly Divine ordination, that works 
within such narrow limits. The theory is evidently on the 
close-communion principle, and smacks after bigotry ! 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. H7 

speak of an imputed and damning sin, to a few 
households only of his children ; together with 
a thence accruing necessity to be miraculously 
born again, or be mack— by direct Divine influ- 
ences, to believe, and, meanwhile, never inform 
the hosts of his other children of their great and 
imminent danger, nor hasten to their rescue by 
the mission of a Moses, a Christ, a Peter, or a 
Paul, is so incredible ; so irreconcilable with our 
ideas of a good, a just, a holy God, that it is 
utterly impossible to be any longer entertained 
with any degree of patience and forbearance 
among intelligent people, whose moral principles 
have not been vitiated by a perverse religious 
training, totally adverse to a healthy and efficient 
exercise of the rational faculties. 

The orthodox doctrine, teaching a supernatural 
birth and faith as necessary to salvation, is clearly 
a mere arbitrary assumption of silly creed-makers, 
imposed on believers, in the face of the plain, 
positive counter-teaching of the Gospel, as any 
one may readily convince himself, by impartially 
consulting that sacred authority; for he will soon 
find that the change from a state of sin to that of 
grace, is described there as entirely the spontane- 
ous act of man, as the following texts, introduced 
in this place as fair representative exponents, or 
specimen-samples of the theory here laid down 
upon this weighty subject: Matthew, 3. 2; 18. 3; 
Luke, 15. 7, 10, 11-24; Acts, 17. 30, &c. Faith, 



118 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

on the other hand, is likewise declared to be 
solely man's work, or the result simply of our 
free-agency, as may also be easily seen by a ref- 
erence to the passages in the Gospel — nay, the 
Bible generally, which treat on this interesting 
question. As verifications of the proposition, 
that faith is exclusively a human production, and, 
therefore, rests on evidence, not on miracles, the 
following few notices, anions; a multitude of 
proofs, are adduced : Mark, 16. 16; John, 6. 47: 
11. 25-27 ; Romans, 10. 4, 9 ; Galatiaiis, 3. 22, 
26; 1 Peter, 2. 6, 7, &c. Hence it is evident that 
conversion or the new-birth, and an evangelical 
or saving faith, are intrinsically and peculiarly 
pertaining to human agency, and, being thus put 
in the power of man, or intrusted to his indepen- 
dent personal efforts, he is — through his own un- 
aided ability, sufficient to believe and alter his 
conduct, in conformity with New-Testament 
principles, or, in other words, to pass from sin 
to godliness, and from no-creed, to a saving 
faith. Such is biblical teaching generally, and 
evangelical teaching especially. Consequently the 
dogma of a miraculous salvation, is antibiblical 
as well as in complete disaccord with plain com- 
mon sense, and must, therefore, be discarded as 
at once false and most decidedly pernicious to 
human progress ! 

Whatever, therefore, may appear in Scripture 
seemingly contrary to the positions here laid down, 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. \\§ 

is to be interpreted in accordance with the fore- 
going arguments, and set down as simply de- 
noting a merely ameliorative moral change in 
man's conduct, achievable by his own native, or 
unaided exertions, and implying only a vulgar 
accommodation to a belief, current in the ages, 
during which the revelation of the Bible was os- 
tensibly made to a part of mankind, and which 
habitually believed and expected miraculous in- 
terpositions of the Deity, in the government of 
human affairs, especially — according to New- 
Testament views, in relation to salvation. 

Even now — in the opinion of many people : 
Christian people too, God continually interferes 
with man's free-agency ; suspends the laws of 
nature ; adapts his conduct to the change of cir- 
cumstances ; can be offended ; propitiated ; flat- 
tered ; bribed, in fact ! But who — that has the 
least intelligence, believes that there is any truth 
in these puerile anthropomorphic notions? Phi- 
losophy and common sense emphatically say : No 
body ! — God governs by laws : is, in truth him- 
self governed by laws, which are unalterably — 
because wisely, fixed, as physical science, the ex- 
perience of ages, and long, as well as careful, 
observation, have unquestionably determined, 
and, hence, wdiatever seems to vary from them, 
is not reality but only appearance. Man too — it 
behooves to bear in mind, is under the dominion 
of law, and modern psychology knows nothing 



120 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

of a miraculous or supernatural method of salva- 
tion : there is no need for it, being foreign to 
man's nature and true interest ! Man — I am 
happy to announce to the reader, is fully adequate 
by the appropriate use of his own innate powers 
— as I have, in effect, stated above, to meet the 
unmistakable conditions of his exalted destiny; 
yet is he thus adapted and able to do thus, only 
through the means, both abundant and efficient, 
which the Creator has kindty, nay, lovingly, put 
at his disposal. For God really governs all 
things, though his government is administered 
indirectly or through the operation of laws : the 
interpreters of his will, and the dispensers of his 
blessings ! 

"But," rejoin the opponents of these views — 
so adverse to the presumed orthodox creed, "the 
Bible, clearly teaching Divine interposition in 
the laws of nature and the course of human events, 
its lessons must be received without gainsay or 
qualification." I beg to differ from this dictum,, 
and to remark that w r hat men have promulgated 
from time to time, as the word of God, must 
rest upon its own merits, and — as such, is not, 
in any way, to be interpreted as the result of 
Divine inspiration, or the supernatural influence 
of the Spirit of God, for all pretensions to super- 
natural communication of any truth, or system 
of truths, is now generally and justly classed by 
those, who are best able to pass an opinion on 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 121 

the subject, among the credulous and superstitious 
beliefs of a benighted and priest-ridden age. 

Do I, then, evil or wrong, in pointing out the 
errors and fallacies, which have so long and so 
grievously marred and damaged the faith and 
hopes, the honest self-reliance and unrestrained 
spontaneous energy of the soul ? No one — it is 
certain, can sustain loss in learning the truth, or 
\ giving it room among the hallowed principles 
which should govern our lives ; for — as says the 
adage, " Truth is mighty and must prevail." 
Error and sham must expect, sooner or later, to 
be exposed, and then speedily to come to an end : 
God wills it thus ! And though it is only in a 
secondary or indirect way that we are the — often 
unworthy, recipients of his gifts, it is, neverthe- 
less, he alone that rules over us : it being em- 
phatically and literally by his benignant agency 
that we have and enjoy every good thing we need, 
either for the body or the soul, for the present or 
the future world. Nor should we complain or 
think unkindly of any one, who may deem it a 
sacred and indispensable duty, to undeceive us on 
a subject, involving so many grave issues, and 
thus — once for all : as writes the great Twicken- 
ham bard, 

" Vindicate the ways of God to man." 
11 



122 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Polygamy considered as a Mormon-Institution, or Eeligion 

retrograding. 

Singular as it may sound to an American ear, 
Polygamy is, nevertheless, an institution common 
at the present day, among many Oriental nations. 
Its origin is remote, and may be traced back to 
the primitive ages and customs of mankind. 
From its great antiquity and wide observance, it 
might be inferred after a superficial reflection, 
that it is simply a compliance with an inherent 
and deeply-rooted law of our nature, whose wants 
can be supplied only in this seeming anomalous 
manner, and that, therefore, there is nothing 
improper in it. But such is, by no means, the 
case, as will appear hereafter. 

Though uncurbed and inordinate passion, in- 
dicative of rude, sensuous manners, and a marked 
proneness to sensual indulgence, has — no doubt, 
often led to the use of polygamy, such an origin 
is still comparatively rare — an infraction, now 
and then, of the decencies of social life, and em- 
braces, at most, only the exceptional or irregular 
instances in polygamous indulgences. On the 
contrary, a vain fondness for ostentation, and an 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 123 

occasional superabundance of women, are the 
two fruitful and ample sources, which have done 
more to introduce and perpetuate the harem-insti- 
tution, than any other circumstance or motive, 
recognizable in the history of our race. 

As I have just stated, fondness for osten- 
tatious display; a ludicrous passion for vulgar 
tinsel ; and a childish craving for the evanes- 
cent pleasures of the senses, have always been 
characteristic of a great part of mankind. Nu- 
merous servants ; a splendid retinue ; luxurious 
furniture ; gaudy attire, &c, attest the wealth and 
denote the taste of the vain voluptuary : pointing 
out on the one hand the amusements and pur- 
suits that will most gratify him, and indicating on 
the other, the estimate, which the more sensible 
portion of society will be likely to form of his 
worth. "When it had once become fashionable to 
have harems, every one who had the means and 
the leisure to support such a ridiculous establish- 
ment, or the contemptible ambition to emulate 
his neighbor in so expensive but supposed indis- 
pensable an appendage of fancied greatness, 
would — at almost any sacrifice, have a polygamic 
institution, and was, therefore, but ill content till 
his sensuous and puerile craving was satisfied. 

Polygamy, on a small scale, is not distinguished 
by a rigid seclusion of the wives, and the dwell- 
ing needs no harem-department to accommodate 
them. They are less reserved in their maimers, 



124 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

and their freedom has fewer trammels, than is 
the case with the inmates of the gyncecium. That 
they have occasionally contentions, and are sorely 
agitated by jealousy, is too self-evident to be 
doubted. And that the uxorious husband has, 
hence, frequent and, sometimes, prolonged vex- 
ations, notwithstanding his otherwise superior 
polygamic felicity, there can also be no doubt. 
Alas, that human enjoyment should be so rudely 
marred ! 

The occasional superabundance of women — 
considered as a leading cause of polygamic prac- 
tices, will, next, demand a cursory notice.— There 
can be hardly a doubt, that this absurd institu- 
tion, and laughable method of making a display; 
of attracting admiration ; of flattering the pride, 
and satiating the carnal propensities of the dis- 
solute, had its origin mainly — if not exclusively, 
in the fell ravages of war, which — while destroy- 
ing the men, generally spares the women. These 
poor creatures — in consequence of such cruel 
bereavement, find themselves usually in a very 
deplorable situation. Their natural protectors 
and friends, alas, have fallen in battle : the un- 
happy victims of an unholy ambition, or a savage 
mode of redressing a real or a presumed wrong. 
Such beino; the state of affairs, it is often the case 
that none is left to give them shelter, or provide 
for their wants : they are — as may be well sup- 
posed, not only desolate, but extremely wretched ! 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 125 

Under such untoward circumstances, youth and 
good looks become dangerous possessions ; and 
these fair, luckless, helpless women, are ruthlessly 
carried off by the haughty and pitiless conquerors, 
thenceforth to grace their harems, and to gratify 
at once their pride and their lust, or, in smaller 
numbers, find a home in the more humble and 
less grandly or precisely ordered household. 

In further illustration of this engaging subject, 
it may neither be useless nor quite uninteresting, 
to learn what views Mohammedans hold in refer- 
ence to polygamy, considered as a national insti- 
tution, and a prominent feature in islamism. — A 
writer, in " Chambers's Encj^clopaedia," observes 
that the principal points in relation to polygamy, 
and upon which all Mohammedans agree, are the 
following : " Polygamy is allowed, not, as is com- 
monly supposed, without any restriction, but: 
' Take in marriage of the women who please you, 
two, three, or four ; but if ye fear that ye cannot 
act equitably, one ; or those whom your right 
hands have acquired' — that is, your slaves. These 
are the explicit words of the Koran — IV. 3, so that 
four wives, and a certain number of concubine 
slaves, is the whole extent to which a Moslem 
may legally go. The Prophet's example proves 
nothing to the contrary, since he w r as endowed 
with special privileges, and not subject to the 
common law in many respects. It is, moreover, 
added, as an advice, that to marry one or two is 



126 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

quite sufficient for a man, if he apprehends any in- 
convenience from a larger number of wives/' &c. 

Mormon-polygamy differs materially from most 
polygamic institutions, in being professedly of a 
religious character. Its founders teach, in sub- 
stance, that it is a Divine institution, and, conse- 
quently, an efficient as well as an entirely ortho- 
dox means of grace. It has, moreover, the salient 
peculiar^ that it is purely voluntary on the part 
of the wives : being the result merely of suasion, 
or simply of moral influence. Hence, should any 
fair damsel happen to be wooed for the purpose 
of swelling the devout host of " The Church of 
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," all that she 
needs do, is to refuse assent to the solicitation, 
and depart in peace, or yielding compliance, ever 
after waive the right to complain ! 

A contributor to the valuable Work, already 
referred to in the penult paragraph of this article, 
gives a brief but quite adequate history of the 
polygamic institution among the Mormons ; a 
notice of which, in this place, will serve to con- 
vey the necessary information on the subject : 
" As early as 1838," he remarks, " the Prophet, 
it is affirmed, had commenced practically to carry 
out his doctrine of the c Celestial Marriage,' or of 
a 'Plurality of Wives;' but it was not till July 
1843, that he formally received a revelation on 
the subject authorizing polygamy." 

There can hardly be the shadow of a doubt, 



HONESTF IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. J27 

that the Mormons were much influenced by Old- 
Testament precedents in the inauguration of 
polygamy among them. Vicious tastes, selfish 
aims, a fondness for novelty, and love of pomp, 
&c, would naturally appeal to examples among 
the " Chosen People," in justification of their 
extravagant scheme. And it must be owned 
that such examples of lubricity of manners stand 
out prominently in the persons — for instance, of 
Abraham: " the father of the faithful;" of Ja- 
cob : a patriarch in Israel, and a man whom God 
— we are told, " loved;" of David: "the sweet 
psalmist," and "man after God's own heart;" 
and, finally — to proceed no further, of Solomon, 
who was not only a puissant monarch but a great 
sage ; for — according to Scripture, " He was wiser 
than all men." I will only add, in reference to 
the last quotation, that if the possession of 700 
wives and 300 concubines, is an evidence of a 
man's wisdom, Solomon certainly enjoyed this 
precious gift in a very eminent degree ! 

The Mormons, undoubtedly, laid great stress 
upon the polygamic practices, recorded in the 
Old Testament — as signal exemplifications of their 
contemplated "Celestial-Marriage" system; for 
they received both the Old and the New Testa- 
ment as equally divine, only adding to them — as 
being of equal authority with them, as well as 
supplementary to them, the famous "Book of 
Mormon," containing — they assert, God's revel a- 



128 TRUTH IN RELIGION; OR, 

tions to the New, as the other sacred books con- 
tain his divine promulgations to the Old World. 
That Mormonism — as a polygamic institution, 
is flatly at variance with the spirit of the age, and 
clearly antagonistic to the laws and manners of 
the United States, there can be no particle of 
doubt, and it would, hence, be needless to revert 
to first principles for proof, in a matter that must 
be patent to all. Besides, it is grossly repugnant 
to the clear, emphatic ordination of God, in con- 
sequence of which, the sexes are made generally 
to be numerically equal, and therefore, the infer- 
ence necessarily follows that one man and one 
woman should compose the nuptial relation, or 
— in other words, that marriage should be mono- 
gamous. A disregard of the Divine will on this 
weighty subject, is, of course, malum in se : an 
evil in itself, as well as a flagrant violation of the 
natural and inalienable rights of all men indis- 
criminately, and cannot be allowed without doing 
great injury to our fellow-beings, whose right it 
must be, since it is plainly their duty, to found 
families, and perpetuate the race.* 



* The " Perfectionists," or " Bible-Communists," of Oneida 
County, New York, ignoring both polygamy and monogamy, 
teach community of sexual intercourse, or — in the language of a 
writer in u Chambers's Encyclopaedia," they inculcate the doc- 
trine of u no appropriation of men and women to one another." 

This singular society, in which communism, in its widest 
sense, exists, traces its origin to John Humphrey Noyes, a 



HONESTY IN OUR FAITH AND WORSHIP. 129 

A reference to some of the proof-texts, or loci 
classic!, as theologians call them, in favor of mo- 
nogamy, or one-man and one-woman marriage, 
will satisfactorily illustrate the unmistakable Gos- 
pel-teaching on this important question, and — 
with the timely aid of an appropriate poetic effu- 
sion, bring the present dissertation to a close : 
Matthew, 19. 4-6; 19. 29; 22. 24-28; Luke, 14. 
20; 1 Corinthians, 7. 33; Ephesians, 5. 33; 1 
Timothy, 2. 12 ; 1 Peter, 3. 7, &c. Of these 
salient passages, the one in Matthew, 19. 4-6, 
may be justly deemed fundamental and pre-emi- 
nently normative of a true sexual relation, and, 
thus considered, as loudly declarative of the will 
of the Creator. 

The appropriate poetic effusion alluded to, is 
from Moore's "Lalla Rookh," in which the dis- 
tinguished author sounds the praises of sweet 
monogamy against a promiscuous and soulless 
polygamy : 

" There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, 

"When two, that are linked in one heavenly tie, 
With heart never changing, and brow never cold, 

Love on thro' all ills, and love on till they die. 
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth 

Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss : 
And oh ! if there be an Elysium on earth, 

It is this — it is this !" 

native of Brattleborough, Vermont, and is less than a half a 
century old. I will only add, inquiringly, can St. Paul's ad- 
monition : "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own 
mind," be legitimately applied to the Oneida-Institution ? 



APPENDIX 



A Singular Plant-Metamorphosis, or Evolution Seemingly 

Verified. 



A remarkable plant sprang up spontaneously 
last summer, in the court-yard of the writer, and 
was presumed by all who saw it, to be a stunted 
specimen of Zea maize, or Indian corn. Its height 
was about fourteen inches; its circumference 
measured an inch and a quarter ; while its leaves, 
which had the declinated curve of the com-leaf, 
were from twelve to fifteen inches in length, and 
between one and two inches broad. The fruit, 
which was enclosed in a thin, several-leaved 
husk — as is characteristic of this cereal, was sup- 
posed to contain a nubbin, or imperfect ear of corn. 
To secure it against injury from impending frost, 
the plant was transferred into the house, when 
its heterogeneous growth soon became evident ; 
for when — in a week or ten days, the dissilient 
husk had laid bare the fruit, it was found to re- 
semble — not an ear of corn, but an ear of wheat 
or barley, about two inches and a half in length, 
and about an inch in diameter, bearing grains of 
the yellowish-green color of coffee, of the size of 
small, irregularly-shaped lentil-seeds, each armed 

131 



132 APPENDIX. 

with a stiff awn, at least an inch and a half long. 
The seeds — in botanical phraseology, were naked, 
and formed around a rachis, like the grains in the 
ears of wheat or barley. Iu place of staminate 
flowers — as in Indian-corn, and commonly called 
tassels, the ear terminated in several spicular pro- 
longations, which evidently implied an aborted 
male-inflorescence. 

Such — as nearly as I can recollect : the plant 
having been probably months ago lost on its way 
to a distinguished scientist, is briefly the history 
and appearance of this wonderful lusus naturce. 
My apology for noticing it in this place, is — with- 
out further delay, to invite the attention of the 
Public to a subject at once curious and full of 
scientific significance. 

Thus nature too has her mysteries, and verifies 
the teachings of England's great poet, when he 
writes : 

" There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." — Shakespeare. 



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